Expedite Chch quake claims, independent report says

WELLINGTON: EQC staff should manually go through all 2600 remaining Canterbury earthquake claims in a bid to finally settle them, some seven years after the quakes, an independent report has recommended.

EQC should also hire more staff to deal with the claims, the report by independent adviser Christine Stevenson said.

Ms Stevenson, acting chief executive of Customs and a former Corrections deputy chief executive, was enlisted by EQC Minister Megan Woods in February to look at ways the EQC process for Canterbury people could be speeded up.

‘‘There is a high personal and financial toll on a number of Canterbury residents with open claims.

‘‘Some of these claimants have described the mental health and stressrelated issues that they and their families are suffering from as a result of the prolonged claims process and the uncertain outcome,’’ Ms Stevenson said in the report, released yesterday.

Dr Woods said the report revealed issues with staffing levels, data quality, recordkeeping and organisational culture and structure.

‘‘I have asked Dame Annette King, the interim board chair, to consider these recommendations right away and to swiftly implement appropriate measures,’’ she said.

The report recommended a team of experienced EQC staff should pull out all the physical files relating to remaining claims and go through them to ensure key data was correct.

Other recommendations included. —

Hiring more staff to reduce the case loads for case managers so claimants can get more personal attention. A Establishing a claimant reference group made up of claimants and community representative advocates to advise EQC on how to improve the treatment of their customers.

Making claimants’ EQC files available to them on request and introducing a standard for better communication with claimants.

Increasing government monitoring to improve accountability.

Broader recommendations included allowing EQC more flexibility to make cash settlements above the EQC cap, which would then be recovered from the private insurers; and scaling up the Residential Advisory Service which provides independent help to claimants.

The Insurance Council said it supported EQC reviewing and confirming claims data and making it more transparent.

‘‘We strongly support recom mendations for EQC to review and confirm claims data and to make this data more transparent, as this has been a source of concern for a long time,’’ Insurance Council chief executive Tim Grafton said.

He said there were ‘‘significant challenges’’ to allowing EQC to make settlements above the cap, ‘‘not the least being that serious questions exist about the reliability of EQC’s data and the fact that EQC does not apply full and final settlements’’.

Private insurers had received 945 overcap claims from EQC in the last 12 months and 1864 in the last two years.

Christchurch insurance advocate and claims preparer Dean Lester said claims were being prevented from settling because of the siloed way of working. ‘‘How can we progress claims if we can’t even meet with the people who are holding up the claims?’’

The Budget provided $8 million to establish an independent insurance tribunal to resolve outstanding EQC and insurance claims and $3.3 million for a public inquiry to probe the performance of EQC following the 2010 and 2011 Canterbury earthquakes.

The inquiry will inform legislative changes to the Earthquake Commission Act 1993 and to EQC, and a planned review of insurance contract law. — NZME