One of the major landmarks of the Billings Montana landscape is the prominent rock formations called the Rims. Years of natural erosion from the mighty Yellowstone River has carved a lovely valley for us to enjoy.
Living in the shadow of "The Rims" many homeowners enjoy views of the Yellowstone Valley, the Beartooth Mountains and the Pryor Mountains. Unfortunately, on a very rare occasion, one of those Rimrocks will dislodge from it heights above these homes and travel dangerously down, sometimes right into someone's home.
There is an argument about responsibility for this tragedy, some say the city of Billings has responsibility, others say that homeowners take the risk in order to enjoy the location. But what do you do if you have a home in this shadow now, or want to purchase one in the future? Casey McGowan from Western States Insurance just sent us an email that may offer people a little help.
"After the rock slide that caused damage to the house under the rims, we had quite a few people calling in to see if they could get coverage for this through an insurance policy. What we found was that it is excluded in all policies and the rock slide is considered earth movement like Earthquake and therefore excluded.
We contacted all of our carriers and none of them provided an option for this, so we partnered with one of them to develop an exclusive product to offer our clients and attract prospective new clients who may have a rock slide exposure.
We now have a product to sell, and thought it might be of value to you if you had a perspective client that was looking at a home under the rims but was concerned about a rock slide… we can now offer a policy to protect them from that.
The first one we wrote was a bit spendy, but I am guessing it will be a pretty good average to use… for a $450,000 house the annual premium was $2,000 with a $1,000 deductible
Feel free to share with your peeps…"
I didn't know we weren't protected from earthquakes either, did you?
Comments(7)