Earthquake Commission finds 949 claims previously unreported

The reported number of open claims the Earthquake Commission is working on has soared by 949 after an upgrade to its claim management system.

Earthquake Commission (EQC) chief executive Sid Miller said the additional 949 claims that had not previously been included in reporting were being worked on, and took the total number to be resolved as at May 10 to 3,617.

"The additional claims are at various stages in our resolution process. This means that although we have not been capturing them in our reporting, these claims are being actively managed," Miller said.

"Eighty per cent of the additional claims have had activity on them this year and I can assure all of our customers that their claims will be settled."

The new system would enable a more efficient case management approach.

"The move to case management has involved reviewing our data and allocating claims to specialist settlement managers and this led to the discovery of previously unreported claims," he said.

"We are disappointed to find that we have under-reported our claim numbers. The fact that this error has occurred is frustrating and further demonstrates the need for us to continue improving our reporting processes.

"We can confirm that no remedial requests or claims were lost and there has been no slowdown in the rate at which we are resolving remedial requests because of this issue. So far this year, we have settled more than 2,000 claims."

EQC has commissioned KPMG to complete an independent review of data.

"KPMG is currently undertaking an independent assessment of the degree of confidence EQC can have in the Canterbury claims position reported at the beginning of May 2018," Miller said.

"The objective of this engagement is to assist in providing confidence to the chief executive, board and minister about the completeness and integrity of the reported information."