‘No insurance bro, I’ve just got to stay and do it myself’
With bills to pay, cover was a luxury for many in Wairoa, writes
If community spirit and goodwill was a form of insurance, Wairoa would be the town in Aotearoa with the best coverage.
The town of 4500 people has a median income of $21,500, according to Stats NZ. The gulf between this figure and the median income nationally is potentially part of the reason why few here take out home and contents insurance. According to those in the know, the percentage of uninsured in the worst-affected parts of the town could stand at 60%.
Speaking to the uninsured in Wairoa, many of whom are in Clyde North or near Ruataniwha Rd, near where the Wairoa River burst its banks nine days ago, it’s clear they would like to have insurance, but for many it’s simply a financial bridge too far.
Instead, policies were improvised on the spot: Picking out what to save, or wading back through floodwaters to retrieve ‘‘jerseys and cats’’.
Jessica Morgan, 30, and her 5-year-old daughter Penelope were cleaning up on Friday afternoon.
In the house where Morgan operated her soap and candlemaking operation, the signs of the flood are etched into the walls.
A film of scum is now an unpleasant reminder of the height of the water which submerged much of North Wairoa.
Morgan grabbed her daughter, laptop and phone as the Wairoa River started to come up Carroll St.
After a brief stint on the southern side of Wairoa, where the town’s suite of shops and amenities is located, Morgan returned on foot to collect ‘‘a PlayStation 5, two of my grandad’s jerseys and two of my cats . . . Tabitha and Oak’’.
Morgan is without home, contents or business insurance. The only policy she has is on her car.
In the small courtyard to the rear of Morgan’s business, buckets of muddied water sit full of her daughter’s toys.
When asked what she will do without the financial support of insurance, Morgan says there is only one option.
‘‘I can’t afford to get back into my soapmaking, so I have to come up with something new.’’
Morgan says only a few on Carroll St have insurance.
Everywhere one turns, one is confronted by the self-effacing sense among locals that someone, somewhere else, is doing it tougher. Morgan says her floors are concrete, they can be waterblasted.
John Morrell has lived in Wairoa since at least Cyclone Bola, he says. These events are difficult to forget, and soon they become moments in time from which all else is measured.
Morrell has spent the last nine days clearing silt from his property. First came the bulldozers and diggers, then the spades and wheelbarrows, and now it was down to himself and his son Kehu and a set of wellused mops to see to the balance.
For Morrell, who also lacks insurance, the job of restoring the house that his father had bought for the family after Bola, would rest with him – irrespective of any hypothetical payout he might have received.
To free up more of his time, his mother travelled from Palmerston North via a 12-hour detour to pick up his 3-month-old moko and take her to relative safety.
‘‘The old lady made the 12-hour trip from Palmy right the way up to pick her up. So I can get into work, eh? Work, work, work. Because no insurance bro, I’ve just got to stay and do it myself.’’
Many on his street are in a similar position. But even so, the feeling here is less a lament and more one of pride.
‘‘This is all work from just the community. All our big diggers and workers are out of town on the roads.’’
The cost of an insurance policy was also a factor, he explains.
‘‘It’s hard enough to live without paying for something else.’’
Morrell says that perhaps his father’s prescience of another storm to come helped him pick a home with good bones.
He explains that the floorboards of the house will never buckle, they’re rimu, they’re ‘‘straight and true’’.
‘‘I’m quite glad the house is solid. They’re old-school, like rimu ones. They don’t warp, eh? Straight and true. The hardboard that’s been put on the walls over the years, that’s where it’s [the water] bubbled up.’’
On the other side of Te Rato Rd is Justin Naaka (Ngā ti Rakaipaaka), who lives on the land his family have owned for 97 years. He whakapapas to the area, this is home.
Tending to his Nissan ute, he has a good tip for getting water out of a diesel engine.
‘‘Take the glow plugs out, keep them in the right order, turn the ignition, it’ll start pumping out the water, then wait for the mist, and that’s diesel.’’
Naaka is one of the people Morrell referred to. In lieu of a policy, he had to quickly decide what to save, and in what order.
‘‘Everything really important I put in the roof. Like my computer, TV and cables. Other things that were good to save I put on the tables and bench. Then anything else I didn’t give a shit about, I left on the floor.’’
In a theme slowly emerging across parts of the town, price – and the thought that something on this scale wouldn’t happen – are the reasons insurance was seldom sought. After all, they survived Bola, what could be worse?