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Contents claim surge sees EQC pay-out top $2b
01 Nov 2011
The Earthquake Commission has received thousands of calls and claims documents as the Sorted for Summer Canterbury earthquake contents claims campaign wrapped up on Friday.
EQC has promised to pay out all completed contents claims received by 28 October in time for Christmas.
The surge in settlements of contents claims has seen the total paid out from all home, contents and land claims in Canterbury since the September 4 earthquake top $2b. As at Friday, 28 October, EQC had reached settlements totalling $2.2b.
EQC claims manager Gail Kettle says the milestone is a testament to the hard work of EQC staff across the organisation, from assessors to claims processors and contact centre staff.
“EQC has doubled the amount we have paid out in claims in the past 15 weeks.
“I expect our payments to continue ramping up for the foreseeable future as we deal with thousands of contents claims received over the past month and continue to work through the building assessments.
“There is a lot of work still to do in terms of settling claims, but we are making significant progress in getting customers sorted and ready to get on with their lives.”
The Sorted for Summer campaign, which involved advertising and thousands of calls to customers with unsettled claims to encourage completed schedules of contents and other claims information, began on September 17 and ended on Friday.
Gail Kettle says the campaign has seen documents for 17,000 contents claims uploaded in the past month, including 2500 over Labour weekend alone.
“So far, we have received 165,056 contents claims and of these, 75,222 have been resolved. EQC is on track to complete the rest by Christmas.”
With more and more claims being finalised, the amount being paid out to customers is also increasing. Last week EQC paid out about $23m in contents claims, about three times as much as was being paid out in September.
For more information, contact: Iain Butler, EQC media manager, 029 978 6430; ibutler@eqc.govt.nz