Many 1906 SF fires were intentionally set by the owners themselves, after the earthquake had damaged their buildings, because most insurance policies covered lo

Many 1906 SF fires were intentionally set by the owners themselves, after the earthquake had damaged their buildings, because most insurance policies covered losses due to fire, but not those due to earthquake. So, if you burned your building down completely, leaving no evidence that it had been first damaged by the earthquake, you had a chance at being reimbursed. http://www.sfmuseum.org/1906.2/arson.html http://www.sfmuseum.org/1906.2/arson.html It's not clear how much of the fire damage was due to intentionally set fires; there were also a significant number of fires started unintentionally when the fire department dynamited various buildings in failed attempts to establish fire breaks. (And, hey, you were still covered if your building was dynamited!) So, lets hope the SFFD is better in this regard than in 1906 as well. The insurance industry claims that only 2% of the destruction was directly due to the earthquake; 98% was from the fires. https://www.iii.org/article/san-francisco-earthquake-1906-insurance-perspective https://www.iii.org/article/san-francisco-earthquake-1906-in...