How to manage earthquake risk?

[hawkeye]

Hi All,

We lost 15 tenancies in the 2010/2011 events. My answer to the original question is to understand what your Insurance is providing for you. When dealing with your insurer or worse still EQC, it will be years before you are paid out after a big event.

Make sure you have enough rent replacement cover so that you can handle your flats being empty for years rather than months. It took us four and a half years to settle all of out insurance claims. We had to lodge proceedings in the High Court to achieve that 'expedited' result.

Make sure you understand what cover you have. Indemnity, full replacement or something in between. We have been helping friends and acquaintances with their insurance claims and the number that found they were under insured was frightening. Often it was people who purchased their policy through the bank they got the mortgage from and almost always older homes.

If you have paid for full replacement insurance and the insurer has taken on that risk based on the increased premium payments then you are entitled to a full replacement when the asset is destroyed.

We are insured with Vero and their policy was very badly worded in 2011. Its current form is now crafted so that all the ambiguities and things that erred towards the customer have been 'clarified' to read as they tired to interpret them in 2011 and failed.

To summarise read and understand your policy. I laugh my a*** off every time I see someone say that got a better deal based on the price of their insurance.

[jomjom]

Hi All,

We lost 15 tenancies in the 2010/2011 events. My answer to the original question is to understand what your Insurance is providing for you. When dealing with your insurer or worse still EQC, it will be years before you are paid out after a big event.

Make sure you have enough rent replacement cover so that you can handle your flats being empty for years rather than months. It took us four and a half years to settle all of out insurance claims. We had to lodge proceedings in the High Court to achieve that 'expedited' result.

Make sure you understand what cover you have. Indemnity, full replacement or something in between. We have been helping friends and acquaintances with their insurance claims and the number that found they were under insured was frightening. Often it was people who purchased their policy through the bank they got the mortgage from and almost always older homes.

If you have paid for full replacement insurance and the insurer has taken on that risk based on the increased premium payments then you are entitled to a full replacement when the asset is destroyed.

We are insured with Vero and their policy was very badly worded in 2011. Its current form is now crafted so that all the ambiguities and things that erred towards the customer have been 'clarified' to read as they tired to interpret them in 2011 and failed.

To summarise read and understand your policy. I laugh my a*** off every time I see someone say that got a better deal based on the price of their insurance.

Thanks for sharing your experience.

[JAYDNZ]

To summarise read and understand your policy.

Couldn’t agree more

[eri]

GeoNet has revised their Kaikoura quake aftershock forecasts, downgrading the risk of another large earthquake.

They now put the odds of another earthquake between M6.0 and M6.9 hitting within 30 days at 15 per cent, down from 18 percent in February.

The chances of another quake at M7.0 or higher is down in the next 30 days is down to 1 per cent from 2 per cent in February.

"We like this downward movement in our forecast; it is good step in the right direction," GeoNet scientists wrote in their release.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/9062...to-15-per-cent

[Beano]

GeoNet has revised their Kaikoura quake aftershock forecasts, downgrading the risk of another large earthquake.

They now put the odds of another earthquake between M6.0 and M6.9 hitting within 30 days at 15 per cent, down from 18 percent in February.

The chances of another quake at M7.0 or higher is down in the next 30 days is down to 1 per cent from 2 per cent in February.

"We like this downward movement in our forecast; it is good step in the right direction," GeoNet scientists wrote in their release.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/9062...to-15-per-cent

Risk reduced by 50pc=premium reduced by 50pc

[eri]

hahahaha.....

[elguapo]

how I could manage earthquake risk

You can't.

[Viking]

It should be pointed out that now the EQC is not the negotiator of the claim. The govt. has changed the rules so that your insurance company now deals with the claim and claims the first 100k back from EQC.

[Eugene]

Been major damage in Australia from earthquakes -tiny little shakes in NZ terms but the building code can't deal with them so all the old brick and stone fell down. Look at the Japanese building if you want to know about managing risk.

Every property is different - but effectively bedrock is good - landfill not good - river flood plain - worst. You do know that we still have sum-insured earthquake insurance here - EQC covers you so long as you have building insurance. That's lot better than most places.

In terms of worrying about your investment - earthquakes should be at the bottom of the list

Adelaide is the most at risk Australian city, in 1954 there was a magnitude 5.6 earthquake.
Even though Australia sits in the middle of a tectonic plate!

[Eugene]

^

interesting

seems to imply rotovegas to taupo

much higher risk than wellywood

That would be due to the Okataina caldera.

The Okataina and Taupo Volcanic Centres are regarded as some of the most active caldera systems in the world, and yet little has been done to prepare for the consequences of an unrest event, or a resulting low frequency but high impact eruption.

https://www.waikatoregion.govt.nz/services/regional-services/regional-hazards-and-emergency-management/caldera-advisory-group-cag/

Caldera unrest includes earthquakes.

[eri]

east coast

<10mtr above sea level

insurance to rise 25?%

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/nz-earthquake/109833727/scientists-prepare-for-hikurangi-subduction-zone-faultline-to-rupture-in-future

on top of another 10?% rise in ecq levies for ALL properties?

[eri]

read it and weep

https://www.stuff.co.nz/science/109927970/the-worst-natural-disaster-risks-new-zealand-faces

In the capital, a GNS Science study puts the estimated probability of a rupture of the Wellington-Hutt Valley segment of the Wellington Fault during the next 100 years at about 11 per cent. More people could be killed by the resulting tsunami than the earthquake itself, and many thousands of homes would be at risk from landslides in the hills.

A senior geophysicist at GNS Science, Power was lead author of a 2013 report updating New Zealand's tsunami hazard, modelling peak water heights around the entire coastline, including waves of up to 10m that could strike Northland, Great Barrier Island, parts of East Cape and the Wairarapa.
On average, a dangerous tsunami hits the shoreline every 40 to 50 years.

There's nowhere on the coast that doesn't face some degree of risk, but the three main scenarios are:
A tsunami is triggered by an offshore earthquake in the Hikurangi or Kermadec subduction zones, with potentially catastrophic consequences for the entire east coast of the North Island from the Far North to Wellington, and spilling into Marlborough.
The threat to Auckland would be "somewhat mitigated" by buffering from the Coromandel Peninsula and Great Barrier Island.

An earthquake in South or Central America sends a tsunami across the Pacific Ocean, affecting the whole coast of New Zealand, with Christchurch, Banks Peninsula and the Chatham Islands among the hardest hit.

A megathrust earthquake in the Puysegur subduction zone south of New Zealand generates a tsunami that strikes the southwest corner of the South Island, from Fiordland to Southland

plus volcanoes for auckland

and fires for remote areas

[eri]

insurance on pretty much everything, everywhere in nz

set to go up again???

due to risk in wellington

calls for ECQ to also cover home + contents insurance

as AIG (half the market!) starts to drop wellington

[Davo36]

They only want to insure stuff that they will never have to pay out on lol.

In some ways you can't blame them.

But man, they want to have it all their own way.

[Wayne]

They only want to insure stuff that they will never have to pay out on lol.

In some ways you can't blame them.

But man, they want to have it all their own way.

Risk based insurance.
Sounds good to me - user pays basically.
Why should someone in a lower risk area subsidise higher risk areas?