Content supplied by the Insurance Council
Insurance companies have paid out over $11.1 billion in commercial and residential Canterbury earthquake settlements at the end of February 2014, according to the Insurance Council of New Zealand.
The $11.103 billion is made up of $7.359 billion in commercial pay outs and $3.743 billion in settling residential claims.
"The $11.1 billion paid to date is a significant contribution to the economy of the region as its money in business bank accounts, residents who have cash settled, homes that have been repaired or rebuilt, as well as community and public organisations that can continue their work," says Insurance Council Chief Executive Tim Grafton.
"This demonstrates the very real progress that is being made to settle claims and enable the residents and businesses of Canterbury to get back on their feet," he says.
Of the $7.3 billion of commercial claims settled to date, $642 million was paid out in 2014 or the equivalent of $10.9 million a day just in the first two months of this year.
"That means over three-quarters of all commercial claims have now been settled and reinforces the value of insurance in helping the business sector to quickly recover from what was one of the biggest-ever insurance disaster events globally," says Mr Grafton.
In residential claims, $226 million was paid out during the first two months of the year, at a rate of $3.8 million dollars a day.
"Collectively insurers were paying out the equivalent of $14.7 million a day in settling residential and commercial claims during January and February this year," says Mr Grafton.
6 Comments
How many residential claims was that resolved Mr Grafton??
Certainly only a tiny fraction. Insurers having only paid half the amount on residential claims compared to commercial despite the ultimate total value of residential claims probably coming close to or exceeding the commercial total value.
It just shows that without the backing of central government chasing insurers, many thousands of individuals are being left abandoned without the clout to take on the insurers and are being victimised by ruthless insurance companies failing to fulfil their obligations.
Shame on Messrs Grafton, Brownlee, Key, and Sutton. [Completely uncalled for personal abuse deleted. Ed] ... leaving the elderly and young alike in a never ending circle of failed deadlines changing assessments, wilful denial of damage and undue stress.
They have not ripped off the next premium increases to pay for the problem, yet.
With values on paper rising and rising, then papering over the cracks, is the next problem.
Especially when you have nothing in reserve or in budget.
Like with the Protection Squad's blowout of all proportions, rising by 20% to protect the Prime Minister from the violent protests of Christchurch's unhappy voters, I will warrant.
The entitled are safe, but sod the poor Insured burghers who did no wrong, commited no crime, played safe, played fair, played for suckers, by the hole shebang the very, very entitled so-called Insurance Premium Companies.
And do not get me started on the other motley crew, involved.
Totally deficient, except in one regard.
Could easily organise a screw up in a deficit, between em, but boy can they cop a packet themselves.
Must be a TUI in there somewhere.
Talking of restraints, the cuffs are off.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/9895969/Key-promises-ongoing…
Key: ""At the same time - over successive Budgets - we have set out on a longer-term path to repair the damage to our economy from the excessive borrowing, consumption and government spending of the mid-2000s."
That statement is crying out to be accompanied by a graph of debt to GDP colour coded by Government (assuming the year the election was in a year of the preceding government).
https://www.dropbox.com/s/92t0nksj89ggjhw/debtgdp.png
The thing is, there is a section of the population so enamoured with Key that they will asume that since Key described the mid-2000's as damaging, then the line should be going up like it has under National.
Love it dh,
Problem is we just don't seem to have the journalists that possess critical thinking anymore, they seem to fall into some type of stupor when politicians provide stupid statements like those above.
Mainly because they are walking clothes racks.
Most journalists with objective minds now work in Communications for government departments!
What is not highlighted in this article is of the $642m in commercial monies paid this year, $428m or 67% of it came from 1 claim - Lyttleton Port Company - and they spent years and lots of lawyers fighting their insurers to get it, but why let the truth get in the way of a good press release!
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