Earthquake Insurance? (Clarksville: homeowners insurance, houses, neighborhood)

[Rapunzll]

My daughter recently moved into a house in Clarksville, and I intend to move to the same area. She said she was told she ought to get earthquake insurance because Clarksville is on a fault line. I'm just curious, do most people there get it?

[alleycat]

Someone is wrong. Clarksville is not on a fault line. The nearest fault line is the New Madrid fault over near the Mississippi River.

[Rapunzll]

Thank you! I wondered about that. I mean earthquakes can happen pretty much anywhere I suppose, but I hadn't heard anything about fault lines near there. It may have been the insurance agents error. When I called to check what home insurance might run me, they talked about EQ insurance and it turned out she was thinking of New Madrid.

[alleycat]

A big earthquake at New Madrid would probably be felt here, but no real damage.

I have never actually felt an earthquake even though I have lived in Middle Tennessee most of my life, and there have been some minor earthquakes along New Madrid during that time. Others felt them, but it was so little that I didn't even notice.

[cncguy2000]

If they have a big enough earthquake to cause major damage, the Ins. Co. will find a way to weezle out of paying anyways!

- From a Katrina Survivor.....

[Rapunzll]

What's funny here is that I talked to my daughter a bit ago about this, and she insists that they have felt several earthquakes since they've been there, which is just since late Jan.! Heck, we lived in Indonesia for two years when she was little and I only felt two there, and that is a much more active area! It's funny how someone can put a thought into your mind and suddenly you start thinking you're feeling earthquakes all the time!

[alleycat]

Clarksville is only 40 or 50 miles from Nashville (and we would have felt it too). If there'd been news of a earthquake of even a tiny magnitude, they would have reported it here. I don't remember anything on the news about one (but I suppose there could have been and I missed it).

By the way, I'm originally from Clarksville and my mother still lives there.

I work with a couple of the best seismic engineers in the country. Whenever anything happens in California, HCA flies our people out there on their private jet.

[Rapunzll]

I wasn't questioning what you had said. I told her when we spoke that I thought she was imagining it because the idea had been put into her head by someone. She still insists that she has felt them and then mentioned sink holes, which is another thing she'd been warned about. Is that part at all true?

[alleycat]

There are sink holes in Tennessee. Most of the time they're not as dramatic as some I've seen in Florida and elsewhere; I've see some of those on TV that swallow a whole neighborhood. It's rare to have a home be damaged by one here, but it does happen.

[jimj]

After living in the SF bay area for most of my life I can tell you that IMO earthquake insurance is pretty much a waste of money. The deductable is outragous to the point of making it a joke (20-30%) and many things are excluded. All of my insurance agents over the years have told me not to waste my money on it but if you want it they will sell it to you. While your homeowners insurance will not cover the quake damage it does cover fire/water damage which tends to happen if you get shaken bad enough. So in the case of the last SF quake where the houses were shaken then caught fire and burned they were covered.