As thousands of Missourians get ready to participate in the 2021 Great Central U.S. ShakeOut on October 21, the Missouri Department of Commerce and Insurance encourages consumers to consider their plan for financial recovery if a major earthquake event occurs in the state.

The Missouri Department of Commerce and Insurance (DCI) issued a recent Earthquake Insurance Market Report that shows earthquake coverage in the highest risk areas of the New Madrid fault area of the state has hit historic lows. In the six-county New Madrid region of the state, the percentage of residences with earthquake coverage has declined by an astonishing 47 percentage points between 2000 and 2020, from 60.2 to 12.7 percent.

One of the culprits of this continuing fall is the sharply escalating cost of earthquake insurance in the region. In just the last 10 years, costs have increased by 102 percent in the New Madrid counties. Since 2000, costs have increased by 760 percent. 

The New Madrid area of Missouri experienced a series of powerful earthquakes during the winter of 1811-1812, with experts estimating the primary quakes ranging in magnitude from 7.0 to 7.5. Were an earthquake of similar magnitude to occur today along the New Madrid fault, losses would be staggering. The risk modeling firm AIR Worldwide has estimated that a New Madrid recurrence would produce insured losses of $120 billion dollars (2011 dollars). Such losses would only be rivaled by a repeat of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, with estimated losses of $93 billion. 

A joint assessment by the Mid-American Earthquake Center of the University of Illinois and the Federal Emergency Management Agency predicted that a major New Madrid event could entail total economic losses of $300 billion, surpassing the highest total economic loss of any natural disaster in US history.

Missourians are urged to consider earthquake insurance as a means to help them recover financially in the wake of a catastrophic earthquake event in Missouri.

“We want Missourians to be ready for all types of recovery following a disaster,” says Chlora Lindley-Myers, Director of the Missouri Department of Commerce and Insurance. “Once the immediate issues of health and safety are achieved, people will be faced with the necessity of recovering financially. It’s important that consumers think about their family, their home and consider earthquake insurance as a part of their financial readiness strategy.”

The Department of Commerce and Insurance encourages Missourians to add planning for a financial recovery to the list of other drill preparations as we focus our attention on earthquake preparedness.