Earthquake resistance grades and earthquake insurance

November 6st
When I wrote about earthquake resistance grades and earthquake insurance, someone told me that earthquake insurance covers building fires, tsunamis, and liquefaction caused by earthquakes that cannot be avoided with earthquake resistance grade 3. I think that is certainly a major benefit of earthquake insurance.
However, tsunamis can be avoided when selecting land. Liquefaction can now be investigated quite well using liquefaction hazard maps, etc. The only thing that is difficult to escape from is widespread fires after an earthquake.
Although it is not perfect, there is one measure that I think is effective in this regard. It is to build in areas where there are many new homes, and in particular, to build in areas with a low building coverage ratio.
Newly built houses often use dry siding and are semi-fireproof according to the government ordinance. Furthermore, if the building coverage ratio is small, it is very unlikely that the entire town will be burned.

If I keep thinking about things like this, some of you might say, "How pessimistic are you!?", but I think that's just right when it comes to buying a home.
Author Rei Tachibana often writes in his books,
"Buying a home with a loan is like buying a single unit on fully leveraged margin."
I think that both home buyers and housing practitioners need to understand this point again.
People who have never invested may not understand the meaning of this term, so I will explain it more simply.
If you were to decide to invest 100 million yen in stocks for the first time, how much research would you do? You can probably imagine that even after you buy, you will be watching the market price fluctuate with joy and sorrow.
Diversify your investments
・Invest with your spare cash
However, in the world of stock investment, there is a system known as margin trading, where you borrow up to three times the amount of your own funds to invest. This is a high-risk, high-return investment method in which the profits are large when you make a profit, but the losses when the price falls can even exceed your principal. This is an investment method for advanced investors, but I don't think anyone would do this with just one stock. If you do it, it's common to diversify to a certain extent.
However, most home buyers choose to purchase a home with a loan of three to five times their annual income.
Given the level of risk you are taking, purchasing an insurance policy without considering the "seven in ten" risk, let alone the "what if" risk, which is said to have a 30% or higher chance of occurring over a XNUMX-year period, is nothing short of reckless.
To start margin trading, you are required to have experience in stock investment, and the risks are explained to you thoroughly. However, no one explains anything like that to you when it comes to home loans. If I were the Minister of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, I would immediately make earthquake resistance grade 3 mandatory so that people who buy without thinking about it don't have to take on unnecessary risks, and so that precious resources don't have to be wasted.
However, in our country where businesses take priority over the people, there is no sign of this happening. I think that the only way to protect your assets in this country is to study on your own.
One more thing to add: even if you receive earthquake insurance money, people who live in areas that experienced a major earthquake are well aware that after a major earthquake, craftsmen are usually in high demand for about a year, and it is highly unlikely that they will be able to do repair renovations.