Update – Phone calls and getting claim information from your insurance company

At a CanCERN meeting last night it was mentioned that some insurance companies record telephone conversations between the company and claimants. Sometimes this is done for training purposes, sometimes for quality control.

Ask for a transcript, or a CD, of the calls. The person concerned had asked for, and got, the calls on a CD. This helped focus the insurance company’s mind and eliminated disagreement over who said what.

The previous post on getting claim information from your insurance company is here.

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Red Cross Grants

A reminder of the Red Cross grants still available for those who have experienced earthquake damage.

Red Zoners on the move should check out the grant for independent advice (including legal expenses) – available to vulnerable people and those with a child or children under 18 years. NOTE: it is important to apply for this before the expense is incurred.

Click on the name of the grant for more information.

• Disability Support Grant
• Independent Advice Grant (for vulnerable people and those with children under 18)
• Storage grant for Homeowners (for vulnerable people)
• Storage grant for Renters
• Targeted Moving Assistance Grant

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Demolition videos - CBD Red Zone

Demolition News is the best demolition website on the internet. If it is demolition related, this is the place to look.

Part of the coverage provided by the site is videos of demolitions - successful or otherwise. Often there are videos of demolitions in the CBD, such as the one of Natcoll House here. The home page is here.

IAG – Part 2 of bad at playing nicely, or just misunderstood?

The first part of this post (here) outlined aspects of IAG's bad performance in Australasia. Some questions arise: has IAG fallen short in other areas of activity, and what might be motivating its current behaviour? Could it be that IAG is a business under pressure from its own shortcomings, and squeezing Canterbury policy holders to make up for it?

IAG  -  UK

IAG purchased insurance interests in the UK: Equity Red Star (Britain's fifth largest motor insurer) and insurance brokers Barnett & Barnett, a provider of commercial insurance broking and risk management services.

The venture was not a particularly good one, and financial losses occurred. In addition Equity Red Star did not conduct itself well and had failings in the way it managed parts of it’s operations. As reported by the Financial Times on the 3rd of January this year:

Lloyd’s of London has censured a member syndicate for the first time in almost a decade after uncovering failings in the way it managed its financial reserves and claims payments.

The shortfall required Insurance Australia Group, the owners, and private investors, or “names”, to inject hundreds of millions of pounds into the business.

Lloyd’s said on Tuesday that after an inquiry with the Financial Services Authority, the motor insurer had admitted to two charges of “detrimental conduct”.

Not only did the company fall short of market requirements, the whole purchase may have been a bad idea from the outset.

IAG are now looking at selling their UK operation. As Fox Business saw it on the 16th of May:

Commonwealth Bank of Australia analyst Ross Curran said the sale was a "belated admission of their massive strategic mistake" of buying into the U.K. in the first place. IAG's U.K. operation has cost the insurer more than 500 million Australian dollars over the past two years, he said.

"Their U.K. business has been unprofitable for 28 out of the last 30 years," said Curran. "It's unlikely to ever make a profit in IAG's hands for the future. The only problem is there won't be any buyers for these assets."

If the UK operations are anything to go by, IAG aren't always very clever in how they expand their market presence.

IAG  -  Financial Issues

Equity Red Star was bought by IAG for an estimated A$1.8 billion, now has a book value of A$600m, and might end up being sold for A$400m (insuranceNEWS.com.au 21st May).  [click link to continue]

Human Rights Commission - Canterbury Earthquakes: review and appeal rights

The Human Rights Commission have launched three web pages for those affected by earthquakes.

The first, Canterbury Earthquakes: review and appeal rights, is here. The introduction to the web page states:

This information collects in one place the review or appeal rights for common situations people face arising out of the earthquakes in Canterbury. It does not claim to be a comprehensive review of all the appeal and or appeal rights. If you would like legal advice you should consult a lawyer.

This information comes from the websites of the Christchurch City Council, CERA, Fletcher Earthquake Recovery, the Office of the Ombudsmen and from research by the Human Rights Commission.

Some review and or appeal rights relate to a particular issue and others apply in most, if not all, situations.

The issues covered by the page are:

• The review of red stickered notices
• Obtaining reasons for decisions made by a council about you
• Zoning decisions
• Declining the government’s offer
• Obtaining reasons for decisions made by CERA about you
• Repairs
• General Zoning Issues
• Other rights of review/appeal
• Accommodation, property, landlords and human rights

The second is the web page (here) What complaints processes are available if I am unhappy with the Fletcher Earthquake Recovery or building contractor repairs/service provision? This is a distillation of appeal information from the Fletcher/EQR website.

Surprisingly there is not a page dedicated to EQC - what there is will be found buried in the third page on repairs (here).

These pages are a useful bringing together of information for those in the Green Zones who are new to the problems of zoning and insurance. As they are based upon information from official sources there are no new insights, or silver bullets, for those in the Red Zones.
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IAG – bad at playing nicely, or just misunderstood? Part 1

According to various news reports on Wednesday IAG Insurance was "genuinely surprised" to learn some of its customers (via State Insurance, an IAG company) are in the process of taking legal action against them. See the Press article here.

It is true, as the IAG spokesperson said, there are talks going on in the background aimed at resolving some issues. But who are the agencies involved, what is being discussed, and what do they hope to achieve? As always there is no openness, just another one-sided Minister Brownlee sideshow. Is IAG involved? Could they make any meaningful contribution if they genuinely don't know what concerns their clients' have?

In this part of the world it is hard to imagine anything genuine about IAG and it's subsidiaries. Yes, where an assessment is blindingly obvious, they will be sweetness and light - there is no alternative. The moment there is a situation that can in any way be deemed unclear, the behaviour changes. In our area, as in others, they have been active in downgrading assessments from rebuilds to repairs, and high value repairs to lower value repairs.  Trying to get full information from them about assessment details and costings has been made into a difficult and demoralising process. Cooperation and communication seem to be gaps in IAG’s vocabulary and operating manual. Is this a fair reflection on the multi-national Australian company? In my opinion it is.

IAG in QUEENSLAND

The behaviour of an IAG Australia company was strongly criticised by the Queensland Floods Commission of Inquiry (Chapter 12, Performance of private insurers, see here).  One of the worst (possibly the worst) performing insurance companies after the floods was CGU (part of IAG – see the IAG website in Australia here). 

CGU were criticised for their failure to cooperate with the Commission (providing incomplete information, withholding information, and being inaccurate). In addressing CGU’s shortcomings in providing information for the Inquiry, the Commission said: “… the insurer was neither careful nor diligent in its responses to Requirements.”(S 12.3.1).

In the case of CGU’s dealings with clients, and one client in particular, the Commission dedicated a number of pages to describe the shortcomings of both the company’s processes and also the staff, with particular reference to the CEO. (p 308-319)

Have  Minister Brownlee, CERA staff, and staff from the Department of Building and Housing read Chapter 12 of the Report of the Queensland Floods Commission of Inquiry? If they have they would know most of the inadequacies displayed by insurance companies in Queensland (e.g. poor communication with policy holders, poor processes including assessment systems, poor treatment of policy holders) are in practice here. Quite a coincidence really. Or is it the culture of the insurance industry in Australasia or further afield?

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Ansvar insurance update

A news item on the insuranceNEWS.com.au web site provides an update on what is being arranged for Ansvar’s clients (here).

The following are excerpts from the article:

Church-based insurer ACS (NZ) Ltd, the former Ansvar New Zealand, has written to policyholders to inform them of a June 12 meeting in Christchurch.

The New Zealand High Court has directed ACS to hold the meeting to discuss a scheme of arrangement with its creditors – the claimants – so they may vote on approving the scheme and, if necessary, determine the members of an initial creditors’ committee.

Ansvar CEO Andrew Moon said previously that the scheme would only be triggered if ACS directors determine that liabilities exceed assets, or if creditors’ claims can no longer be met in full.

If the scheme is not approved, ACS says it will continue to manage claims, but could be “vulnerable to increasing claims” and other factors that may endanger its solvency.

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