My husband and I are in the middle of moving to our dream home after two years of looking for just the right place. He originally wanted to find some property on the Columbia River I wanted a view. During our long and painful hunting we found some very wonderful homes some filling his dream and some mine. One of our major concerns about our new home is that we can live there for a long time and face minimal risks.
It didn’t take a lot of hunting for us to realize living on the river itself was more risk then we wanted to reduce and control at this point in our lives. The property we looked at was right on the rapid moving fast water, and we have a four year old. We very quickly decided the river is a nice place to visit but the risks to our family and possibility of flood is more then we want to control so decided to eliminate the risk completely and look at property with views.
In the end we have found the right home, on flat ground. At this point in our lives we have decided that a safe structure built in a nice community is the level of risk we feel most comfortable accepting. The houses with the views offered other risks we simply aren’t ready to assume. Most of the homes with the best views were also on the side of hills or in a wildfire area. The idea of land slide and wildfire are not risks we are interested in dealing with at this time.
We do know that our risk of flood is low now and our home should not be part of any landslides our choice has reduced our need to plan for and insure for these things. Had we decided on the property by the river we would have had to take different steps to control and reduce the risks we faced. Our choice alone changed the level of risk we have and the amount and type of insurance we need.
Yes, the house on the river was beautiful and I would have loved living there, but the huge fence around the property and the alarm system on the four-year-old would be a lot of stress and work. We also decided that with or without insurance we simply didn’t feel up to experiencing a flood so we are better off away from the river. We eliminated some of the risks we originally wanted to take once we planned what these risks mean to our family.
Related Blogs:
- Personal Risk Management
- Risk Management: Protecting Your Assets.
- What is “Risk?”
- Retained or Accepted Risks
- Controlling and Reducing Risks
- Eliminating Risks
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