Life Insurance to Compensate for Detrimental Impact of Earthquakes

In the aftermath of the earthquake near the Japanese islands and the devastation it brought into the country of the rising sun, we looked into the exposure of Canadians to earthquakes and the ways we can protect ourselves.  The events in Japan make us feel very strongly for survivors and victims alike.

Quakes are lethal and emotionally disturbing.  This is most certainly the case in Japan, where the Sendai quake registered a 9.0 reading on the Richter scale and thus was the 5^th strongest quake recorded in the history. The magnitude, however, is not really the most important either, because even a less momentous earthquake originating within an inhabited area may come to be more serious than a forceful occurrence happening in the middle of the Pacific.  The last earthquake in Canada could be noticed not that long ago, taking place just a few months ago on June 23^rd, 2010 between Québec and Ontario.  The thing nobody wants to worry about after living through something like an earthquake is paying for picking up the shattered pieces – this is where life insurance coverage can come in very handy.

We enquired five chief Canadian insurance companies and all of these will cover death in the event of a disaster.  The insured, however, mustn’t be hit by the disaster while visiting specifically prohibited locations.

The prevalence of natural disasters of huge significance steadily rises.  It was hardly a few weeks prior to the quake in Sendai that swaths of Australia were under water.

While no more than 75,000 lives were lost yearly during the 1990s, compared to 86,328 each year during the eighties, an average of 211 million people were directly affected by natural disaster in the 90s – up from 147 million in the eighties.

The number of natural disasters has tripled since the 60s and, even worse, the monetary effect has amplified by a factor of nine in that same time.

Death due to an earthquake is increasingly possible all the time, so in Canada, life insurance that helps when someone dies in an earthquake is only a natural choice.