got ethical husbandry?

OK, so then who here buys earthquake insurance?

Mike, better pop over to the retrofit thread and read that PDF! LOL!

Best case, insurance or not, is that you house doesn't fall down! Well, at least do as much as you can to minimize it, you really don't want your house sliding off the foundation and maybe that bit of retrofit that you do will mean all the difference!

I'm going to do some retrofit this weekend when the girls are off at a play date. My problem is that I can't do much after work because the girls are sleeping and a rotary hammer is not very quiet. I might be able to mark and predrill a bunch of holes while they are gone so that the quieter tasks can be done when they are sleeping (like tightening the bolts and stuff). Most likely though, I'll spend that time playing video games instead. ;)

Oh yeah, did a bit more reading. If you have a chimney, it's basically doomed, but you should grab some plywood, and put it in the attic to catch the bricks that come crashing through the roof so they won't smash people/stuff.

V
 
Vincerama2 said:
My equity in the house is a bit more than $200k so it would be hard to stomach just walking away from it. And I would have a hard time paying rebuilding costs AND the mortgage.

V
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Again you consider that your equity is $200k based on todays values. Just saying If you think your property (even with a replacement house) would be worth that much post big one .... I think you are kidding yourself.

Mike you are right it likely cost much less to build a house from scratch then to figure in the whole renovation cost, but supplies and labor prices skyrocket after a disaster. I experienced it first hand after Hurricane Andrew (it is a supply and demand thing). Costs more then tripled for everything.
 
Hehe, I read that retrofit thread, and that actually got me more worried than I wanted to be... thanks ya dick! :D

I need to pick me up a hammer drill before I can get started.

As to the chimney, don't have one, mine is terracotta? (or asbestos given the time this house was built :D) with a metal vent from the roof up, no worries about falling bricks.
 
FYI, the reason for insurance is to remove the sting of a total loss, it is not meant to completely restore as that can never truly happen with your deductible and differences in past and current building codes and materials. It is there to get your car/house/boat/business fixed ASAP to be as little of an inconvenience as possible. I personally would rather be out of pocket 50k in a house that has depreciated then have a house completely destroyed and nowhere to live, but that's me. having sold insurance for years I tend to manage my risk a little higher then most as I have seen first hand what happens when people aren't properly prepared.
 
Bryan. almost all Insurance policies take into account spikes in labor and materials. they can go up to almost 15% more then the actual coverage amount.
 
the policy will pretty much pay to replace the house. but like I said before, if all of CA gets hit by one like the one that happened in Japan, CA earthquake authority will probably go broke then we are all gonna be living in wood shacks.
 
LordHelmet said:
Bryan. almost all Insurance policies take into account spikes in labor and materials. they can go up to almost 15% more then the actual coverage amount.
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So you are saying labor and materials only spike 15% during a natural disaster? Try like 100% and more.

Trust me I about as risk averse as they come and I ran all kinds of pro and con analysis from my perspective and I could never get to the real point of having it. Not saying it doesn't have its merits, just saying that most people don't think about what they are actually paying for and wind up getting it thinking that their problems are covered. Not by a long shot.
 
Again, I'm guessing CEA has re-insurance with some giant like AIG which is "Too big to fail" and if they get in trouble, there is always mr TaxPayer to bail them out again.

V
 
Another good point. OT, that's what going to happen for us taxpayers with the whole PG&E gas pipe issues.
PG&E will have to pay huge amounts of $ to fix the problems, but then charge back to the consumers for problems that was skipped by them in the first place.

Vincerama2 said:
Again, I'm guessing CEA has re-insurance with some giant like AIG which is "Too big to fail" and if they get in trouble, there is always mr TaxPayer to bail them out again.

V
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Well such is the issue with any company that "screws up"... you think Exxon "ate it" when the Valdez nuked the western US with oil? Hell no, those costs were passed onto people using their product. As will any pipeline repairs/upgrades. So if I'm going to be paying whether they fix things now, or they get sued later when the pipelines blow up, I'll rather take safer pipelines today
 
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