With the recent earthquake that our neighboring city Buffalo experienced, we’ve been getting asked by clients if their Homeowner’s Insurance Policy covers earthquake damage.
Homeowner’s Insurance policies provide such broad coverage that people think that they cover every possible claim. Unfortunately, there are exclusions that you need to be aware of. Homeowner’s Insurance policies do not cover flooding (like you open your front door and water comes in), earthquakes, and depending on where you’re located in the country may not cover hurricanes. We don’t experience hurricanes like the people who live along the coast or in other parts of the country, so most of our policies in Western NY provide coverage for hurricanes. There are several other exclusions, but these are the biggies.
While you can’t add Flood Insurance coverage to your Homeowner’s Policy, you need to buy a separate flood policy to get coverage, you are able to add earthquake coverage to your Homeowner’s Insurance by endorsement.
As with any other coverage, you are not able to add the coverage after a claim has occurred, but you are also not able to add the coverage if there have been any tremors in your area within the last 7 days. So even if you haven’t experienced any damage to your home, you would not be able to add earthquake coverage to your Home Insurance if there were any tremors in your area recently.
If you would like to add earthquake coverage to your Home Insurance Policy, give us a call for a quote 585-663-2004.
