Sunday, November 5, 2017

Protect Your Home From Earthquake Damage With Cheap Homeowner's Insurance

By Joyce Cole


Everybody needs to learn the importance of having an emergency plan for you and your family in the event of an earthquake. An important part of that plan has a good emergency kit. What makes the perfect emergency kit? As a homeowner, you should always make a point of equipping your household with one of these crucial implement because you can never tell when disaster will strike. Surviving earthquake damage will to a great extent be tied to this simple yet vital home disaster kit.

The good news is that finding cheap homeowner's insurance that includes earth tremor coverage when you live in a high-risk area may be difficult, but it's certainly not impossible. There are steps you can take to protect your home and your family from the threat of earth tremor damage (a process known as loss mitigation in the wide, wonderful world of homeowner's insurance) while dramatically lowering your insurance premiums.

Anchor your foundation. Foundation anchoring is not a difficult process, and there are hundreds of companies from coast to coast that offer it as a part of their service package (or, if you're a DIY expert, there are numerous companies that sell DIY anchoring products for most standard anchoring jobs).

Additional insurance can also cover buildings adjacent to your home, such as a garage. Your premium for adding additional insurance for earth tremors will depend on several factors. Older homes, homes made of brick, and homes located in earth tremor-prone areas will generally have higher premiums than newer homes, homes made of wood, and homes not located in earth tremor-prone areas. When choosing additional insurance for earth tremors, you should choose to purchase enough coverage to pay for completely rebuilding your home and replacing or repairing your damages. This way, you'll rest assured that you, your home, and your possessions are completely covered, no matter what.

Brace cripple walls. If you ever played dominoes as a child you've already seen a classic example of what can happen to your cripple walls courtesy of seismic activity. The cripple wall is the short stud wall that extends around the perimeter of your foundation and carries the floor joists. In most cases these cripple walls are in adequately braced, making them extremely susceptible to earth tremor damage and bringing your walls tumbling down the minute that fault line starts acting up.

If you have questions about the safety of your home during an earth tremor, then start with these two areas. Being prepared in the event that an earth tremor occurs will leave you glad that you were a forward thinker and took the time to ask yourself, "How can I prevent earth tremor destruction to my home?"

Flashlights, gas lanterns, and solar-powered light sources are also important as electric service will likely be disrupted. Keep a radio on hand to stay up to date on developments related to the disaster. Get a hand-cranked radio if possible. The less you have to rely on batteries to power your electronic devices, the better. That being said, stock up on batteries to have plenty of reserve power.

If you are open to spending just a little extra time and effort to protect your home from crumbling around your ears when Mother Nature decides she wants to dance, however, it won't be long before you see your insurance premiums dropping like a stone.




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