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EQC assesses 100,000th home since February
21 Oct 2011
The Earthquake Commission has assessed 100,000 homes since the February 22 earthquake, says EQC customer services general manager Bruce Emson.
The 100,000th assessment was completed this week, and keeps EQC on target to complete all assessments from the February quake by Christmas.
In all, EQC has paid out over $1.6 billion in claims for buildings since the September 4 quake.
Mr Emson says the 100,000th house assessment is an important milestone for EQC, and reinforces the decision to adopt suburb-by-suburb assessments after assessing the most damaged houses first.
“It’s a good feeling to have got through such a large amount of work, but our team of assessors won’t be taking time out to congratulate themselves.
“The work of inspecting the remaining 64,000 damaged homes continues, and we are on track to complete the whole task by Christmas.
“Our assessment teams have been an integral part of the recovery for over a year now, but this phase of our operation is almost complete. They have been working hard to meet the deadline, but not at the expense of quality work. We have rigorous assessment criteria that all teams must meet.
“For any homeowners in the suburbs we have completed who think they have been missed, or any homeowners across Canterbury who think they have major damage that needs assessing quickly, please call 0800 DAMAGE and we will endeavour to get out to you as soon as we can.”
“People will get a statement-of-claim sent to them after their inspection, and this will give them a record of the extent of earthquake damage to their property.
“The next phase will be rebuilding or repairing damaged property. This will either be with Fletcher EQR or with private insurers.
“The job ahead is complex and on a massive scale. It will take time, in some cases years, to repair or replace every damaged home.”
To view a list of the suburbs where assessments have been completed, go to Canterbury.eqc.govt.nz and click on the “list of suburbs” link.
For more information, contact: Iain Butler, EQC media manager, 029 978 6430; ibutler@eqc.govt.nz