There is something about our psyches that makes us ignore evident risks to our lives and property because the danger is not right before our eyes.



We don’t ignore an advancing forest fire. Most of us high-tail it when told flood waters are headed our way.



But most Canadians living in the country’s two main earthquake zones seem happy to pretend the threat beneath their feet is not something to worry about and prepare for.



A new poll commissioned by the Insurance Bureau of Canada has found residents in British Columbia and the seismically active Ottawa-Montreal-Quebec corridor believe a damaging earthquake is not imminent and probably won’t take place for at least 50 years.



The poll, conducted last spring by Pollara Strategic Insights, surveyed more than 2,000 people in the two regions about their attitudes towards an impending quake and, not surprisingly, whether it prompted them to buy earthquake insurance.



Respondents in British Columbia, who regularly hear about or feel minor quakes, were concerned about earthquakes but didn’t think they would experience one within 50 years.



In Quebec, 54 per cent said they believed the risk was low, even a half century out. A study sponsored by the bureau last year found the region had a five- to 15-per cent risk of a major quake in that period.



The poll, which has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.2 per cent 19 times out of 20, found two thirds of respondents didn’t have earthquake insurance or didn’t know if they did. Insurance policies generally include a separate rider for earthquake coverage.



A stunning 91 per cent of those polled in Quebec said they never considered buying earthquake coverage because they doubted they’d ever need it. In B.C., the figure was an astounding 70 per cent. But the cost of coverage was not the top reason for not buying coverage.



Bill Adams, the bureau’s vice-president of the Pacific and Western region, said this inertia really is not that strange.

[ Related: Strong earthquake and aftershocks shake British Columbia coastline ]



"[A massive, city-shattering quake] really goes beyond any of our human potential to comprehend," Adams told Yahoo Canada News in an interview Tuesday. "Unless you actually lived through an event like that none of us can really fathom what that would be like.

“Because it hasn’t happened in Canada for several hundred years it’s easy to put it off as being a prospect not likely to place – as most people think, according to our poll – for another 50 years or more. So why should I prepare today for it, when the reality is it could happen tomorrow morning.”



Canada, especially the West Coast, is well within the window of a one-in-500-year quake, which Adams said hasn’t had since the 1700s. All the other countries bordering the fault-laden Pacific Ring of Fire have had major quakes recently.



“Canada stands alone as being the only one on the Pacific that has not had a significant quake,” Adams said.

The most notable was the 9.0-magnitude quake that struck northeastern Japan, one of the most prepared countries in the world, in 2011, killing more than 15,000. A magnitude 6.3 quake hit Christchurch, New Zealand the same year, taking about 185 lives.



The frequency of low-level quakes on the West Coast that do little more than rattle the teacups may breed a sense of complacency, Adams suggested.



“I think that in part has contributed to this sense of laissez faire that we find ourselves in. Yes, they occur and we’ve grown comfortable that they occur because they’re not damaging.”



The poll was released in advance of the insurance bureau’s national earthquake symposium scheduled to begin Tuesday in Vancouver and Shakeout earthquake drills this Thursday in B.C. and Quebec.



The insurance industry has been banging the drum over quake preparedness, or the lack of it, for years.



Last October, the bureau released an economic-impact study warning a 9.0-magnitude earthquake off the west coast (the dreaded Big One) could result in losses of up to $75 billion, while a magnitude 7.1 quake near Quebec City could cause almost $61 billion in economic loss.



Adams noted that based on the current uptake on quake insurance, only $20 billion in damage from the hypothetical West Coast quake would have been covered.



One of the poll’s findings was Canadians over-estimated their financial ability to cope with a quake. Two-thirds of respondents felt confident, or somewhat confident, they would be financially prepared, but only half said they had earthquake coverage.



Most seemed to feel their regular home insurance (71 per cent) or government disaster aid (38 per cent) would help take care of the damage. The lack of awareness was most acute in the Quebec quake zone, the bureau said.

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