DEP Lowers Premiums For Mining-Related Insurance Program

Scott Detrow

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Scott Detrow is a congressional correspondent for NPR. He also co-hosts the NPR Politics Podcast.

Detrow joined NPR in 2015 to cover the presidential election. He focused on the Republican side of the 2016 race, spending time on the campaign trail with Donald Trump, and also reported on the election's technology and data angles.

Detrow worked as a statehouse reporter for member stations WITF in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and KQED in San Francisco, California. He has also covered energy policy for NPR's StateImpact project, where his reports on Pennsylvania's hydraulic fracturing boom won a DuPont-Columbia and national Edward R. Murrow Award in 2013.

August 6, 2012 | 3:55 PM

Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection has lowered premiums for its mine subsidence insurance program.
What’s mine subsidence insurance? It’s a policy that offers protection against damage caused by mining-related sinkholes.
Essential Public Radio has more on the program:

Amanda Witman, spokesperson for the DEP, said anyone living in an underground coal or clay mining region should consider obtaining MSI.
“A homeowner living in a coal mining region may have an unexpected subsidence, which is basically the ground moving below their home resulting in damages to their home. Mine subsidence insurance would pay for those damages,” Witman said.
Witman noted typical homeowners insurance policies do not cover these particular types of disasters.
“Having mine subsidence insurance fills that void both literally and figuratively,” Witman said.
Witman said the Pennsylvania Mine Subsidence Insurance program has paid claims ranging from $50,000 to $200,000. The maximum amount of coverage available to purchase is $500,000.