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Teresa Platt’s family have been doing it tough since Auckland’s Anniversary Weekend floods, but now she fears insurance delays and repair costs could be the final hit that tips her family over the edge financially.
Torrential downpours sent a landslip crashing into her Hillsborough property on January 27, sweeping herfront garden away and exposing her home’s foundations.
It’s forced Platt’s family of four, plus pets, to live elsewhere until a new retaining wall is built to make the land safe.
Platt’s insurer Vero is managing her Government-funded national disaster claim, but said it must first complete reports on the land damage and cost to repair it.
However, Platt had not - until the Herald contacted Vero this week - sighted any geotech reports into the state of her land, despite being promised a draft report by April and final reports by May or June.
Now her insurer says her temporary accommodation payments end in six months.
It’s raising fears that if Vero’s delays continue, Platt won’t have time to build the retaining wall and move back into her house before she faces unaffordable rental bills of up to $900 per week on top of her mortgage payments.
Talking to other families with “red-stickered” homes, she said they’re all wondering the same thing.
“Why is it taking so long, we don’t know,” Platt said.
The delays underscore the many trials facing flood- and landslip-damaged homeowners trying to get back on their feet after January’s floods and February’s Cyclone Gabrielle.
The Platts, for instance, are hunting for a rental suitable for their special needs daughter and said up to $30,000 in power tools, jewellery and other possessions were burgled from their house shortly after the January floods.
The thieves entered their empty, red-stickered home and are unlikely to ever be caught because the home’s dangerous state prevented investigating police from looking inside for clues, Platt said.
Teresa and Deb Platt's Hillsborough property in Auckland was damaged by a landslip on January 27.
Yet their family is not alone.
Government figures show 750 buildings across the upper and eastern North Island had been given red-stickers - including 584 in Auckland - as of March 2.
Finance Minister Grant Robertson last month said many of these homes will now be deemed unliveable due to their high risk from future extreme weather and will qualify for a Government-led scheme to buy the properties from owners who wish to sell.
A further 10,000 will require flood mitigation investments to protect them, Robertson said.
However, “red-sticker” homeowners, such as Platt, are still waiting to hear whether they qualify for the scheme.
Could homeowners be left with huge bills to build retaining walls?
Platt’s biggest concern is whether her family will ever be able to afford to live in their home again.
Not only is Platt worried about whether she can build her retaining wall before her accommodation allowance runs out, but she doesn’t know if she’ll be able to pay for the wall itself.
Other homeowners she’s spoken to and who she’s seen make social media posts have said they cannot afford their walls.
They’ve been told they need retaining walls costing hundreds of thousands of dollars but have then been offered cash payouts that are significantly less, according to Platt.
That is due to rules set by the Government’s national disaster insurer, Toka Tū Ake EQC.
New Zealand is unique in having EQC provide land insurance coverage to all homeowners who have private home insurance.
Homeowners wishing to claim land damage with EQC do so through their private insurer, who then manages the entire process.
However, EQC states that it always pays whichever is less: the cost of repairs to the land or the market value of the portion of land that is damaged.
In Platt’s case, the Auckland Council’s capital value lists her property as having land worth $1.25 million.
However, only about one-seventh of Platt’s land is deemed to have been affected by the slip, according to the geotech report that Vero provided to her on Wednesday, after the Herald sent it media questions.
A back-of-the-envelope calculation reveals that could equate to a land value of just under $200,000, based on the council’s valuation.
Yet the scale of wall build is monolithic, Platt said.
Her geotech report recommends a 30-metre-wide and 10m-high retaining wall and says further investigations are needed for cracks found under her house.
It means Platt faces a nervous wait to see if her land is deemed more valuable than the cost of the wall - and thus whether the insurance will cover it or not.
The landslip swept away the front of the Platts' property.
The home's foundations were also exposed.
Insurers buried under a ‘volume of claims’
Vero’s spokeswoman said it is “acutely aware” of the extreme weather’s impact on its customers and is working on all “claims as quickly as possible”.
She said assessments on behalf of EQC are taking longer than usual because of the “sheer volume of claims” and scarcity of engineers for assessments.
Platt’s claim had suffered additional delays because the slip affected two properties - Platt’s and the one in front of her.
“However, even under these conditions, our provision of this geotech report has taken longer than is acceptable and we have apologised to Teresa for this,” the spokeswoman said.
Vero has now given Platt her report and is working to get her claim “settled as soon as possible”.
“Once a valuation of the damage has been completed, we will be in a position to offer her a settlement offer,” the spokeswoman said.
Vero had also been in touch with Platt to tell her about other support services available to her, she said.
Bernadette McDougall, EQC’s head of claims, said her team’s “thoughts are with all homeowners affected by severe weather”.
She said insurers are working hard to progress all claims, “given the demands across all of the regions affected by the anniversary weekend floods and Cyclone Gabrielle”.
“We consider current timeframes are within expectations, considering the scale of the damage, number of claims and demand on qualified assessors and specialists,” McDougall said.
Platt, for her part, said that - while she’s feeling more positive than some homeowners, who say they are feeling broken - it’s still overwhelming.
