Inferno payouts could top R1bn
FROM FIRES AND STORM WORSE THAN CAPE ST FRANCIS IN 2012 As many as 300 buildings and scores of vehicles were destroyed.
Insurance companies are bracing themselves for payouts which could top R1 billion for the destruction caused by runaway Garden Route fires. Reports have said that as many as 300 buildings between Mossel Bay and Plettenburg Bay have been razed. Scores of vehicles parked at houses or caught on roads by the flames were also burnt out.
That damage toll compares with the 80 houses which were destroyed in a runaway fire at Cape St Francis in the Eastern Cape in 2012, which cost the insurance industry an estimated R500 million in paid-out claims.
Denise Shaw, Chief Operating Officer at Standard Insurance, said the company – which has 1 500 clients in the affected areas – saw the disaster “being much larger than what we saw in Cape St Francis”.
Speaking on The Money Show of Talk Radio 702, Shaw said that while the impact of the massive claims on the local insurance industry would be significant, “we are very resilient as an industry” and that international reinsurance companies would carry some of the risk.
Shaw said Stand Insurance had already seen a “tremendous amount of claims” from the Cape storm and that the Knysna claims were still to come in.
“We are trying to phone customers proactively to get them before they get hold of us so we can assist them with alternative accommodation,” she said.
The presidency said yesterday that President Jacob Zuma was deeply concerned about the loss of life and damage caused by fire and storm weather in the Western Cape and reports stating otherwise were “fake news”.
The presidency had noted a report by one of the “fake news” outlets claiming Zuma said that Knysna in the Western Cape was not his concern. The online report and supposed quotation from the president are false, his office said.
It added that the president was “extremely concerned by the loss of life, displacement of people and total devastation that have been visited on the residents of the Western Cape including Knysna, Plettenburg Bay in the Cape Peninsula and all affected areas as a result of the severe weather and heavy storms”.
The presidency pointed out that government had dispatched humanitarian support to all affected areas, especially poor communities.
“We also thank all those who have come forward with support to the affected communities and appeal to those with the means to assist the residents of Western Cape who have been caught by the devastating effects of the storm,” it quoted Zuma as saying.
Tourism Minister Tokozile Xasa offered her condolences yesterday to the families and friends of the eight people who have died in the fires and storms this past week.
Xasa added: “We also sympathise with all those who have lost their homes and belongings, especially those who have lost their homes in informal settlements.”
The Southern Africa Tourism Services Association has established an operations centre for medical emergencies, reporting missing people, lost passports and repatriation requests.