Canterbury starts to recover from Quake

Sep 10

The recent events in Christchurch are a reminder that we all need to be prepared for a disaster. Having adequate insurance and a fully stocked survival kit and survival plan are critical to ensuring that you and your family get through a disaster without major disruption.

Having our company’s head office based in Christchurch we can fully appreciate what a major event the earthquake was. Our systems and procedures fared well and there was no loss of business continuity. We were available for our clients, many of whom had questions about their insurance and the claims process.

The enormity of the event has been well communicated by the media but the level of resulting trauma may be difficult to comprehend for those outside of Canterbury. Our Cantabrian team have been well and truly rattled by the quake and the ongoing aftershocks – a very exhausting and stressful time and to all our clients based in Canterbury we extend our empathy and our hope that your community and homes will be restored as soon as possible.

We are unsure of the impact this event will have in the short and medium term, however there will be a lot of client uncertainly particularly for those who are in the midst of a property transaction, clients wanting to lodge claims and experiencing delays in house settlements and purchase decisions. The overall impact on the Christchurch housing market is not certain, but our sense is there will be some short term loss of activity followed by some longer term momentum as the market recovers.

Since the quake we have been communicating with impacted customers to help where we can – in particular offers of assistance with insurance claims and negotiating financial relief with lenders have been areas of support that have been well received by our clients and we have been glad to provide guidance with these challenges.

As has been said over and over, it is a miracle that there have been so few injuries resulting from the earthquake and that no one was killed.  An event like this highlights the level of inadequate insurance cover and in some cases complete lack of cover within the population, Sadly there are a number of impacted Cantabrians who did not hold house and contents insurance and are now facing financial ruin.  Had the quake caused death and wide spread injury there would be many more families decimated, not only through the loss of a loved one, but in many cases there would be no life insurance to help them through. It has been a timely reminder to us of the key role we play in educating our clients on the benefits of being appropriately insured.