During Sunday's 6.0-magnitude earthquake, about $75,000 worth of bottles of wine, rum and whiskey flew off the shelves of Aiyaz Masani's liquor store in Napa, California. He estimates about half his inventory was damaged, winding up in three-foot piles in the aisles.

But that financial hit is far from enough to convince him to buy earthquake insurance for Redwood Liquor. That would mean forking over about 7 to 8 percent of his insured value of $100,000 in premiums alone, he said.

"It doesn't amount to good financial sense," Masani said on Monday, while standing beside a sidewalk dumpster where workers shoveled broken glass and the stench of fermenting alcohol hung in the air. "It's useless to buy insurance."