Earthquakes can cause a great deal of damage that won’t be covered under your homeowners, renters or condominium insurance policy. These policies don’t cover damage due to natural disasters such as earthquake, flood and landslide. Your home is insured for earthquake damage only if you’ve added an endorsement to your policy or bought a separate earthquake policy. A homeowners policy and earthquake insurance don’t overlap, but work together to give your home more insurance protection.
What is an endorsement? An endorsement is a written change to your insurance policy. It can be used to add or remove insurance coverage, so review any policy endorsements very carefully.
Waiting until after an earthquake to buy insurance is never a good idea. First, you can’t buy insurance to cover damage that’s already happened. Second, after an earthquake, insurers likely won’t sell coverage for some period of time and when they do, premiums may be higher.
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