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Auckland flooding to take a financial toll on New Zealand's biggest insurer IAG

Insurance / news
Auckland flooding to take a financial toll on New Zealand's biggest insurer IAG
floods

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15 Comments

Who'd a thought that a major insurance company would have reinsurance issues after the Christchurch earthquake reinsurance dramas!

What a surprise that these over paid guru's of industry didn't "take any learnings" from CHCH. 🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄..how much is this gunna cost....US!

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Does it raise any questions about (perceived) liability of the owner of various infrastructure?

e.g. houses that would not have been flooded if the storm water system in an area had been maintained and doing it's job?

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It is a lot easier to just stop providing insurance in certain areas, rather than try and chase Liability every time an event happens, or a claim is made.

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I would have thought the scale and level of losses involved in this supposedly one-in-X-hundred-years event would make that worth doing. If not then, then when?

Note that we seem to have had hints from government suggesting the risk premium for some earthquake prone areas that may render parts of a certain city uninsurable be spread across the entire country. I'd be interested to know what portion of that is being picked up by Aucklanders who would face being uninsurable. Goose, gander etc. 

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By International Standards we are an insurance nightmare.

We are a small island at the bottom of a very big ocean near Antartica while sitting on the ring of fire.

We are about as high risk as countries come. At some point private insurance will likely cease entirely. The risk isn't worth it.

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Insurance industry is not doing that bad is it? In the last 15 years we’ve probably paid at least 20k in house insurance and never made a claim. That’s probably the case for the majority of the country. 
Car insurance makes no sense to me, almost every crash is a write off these days. 

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We do not have contents, over 20 years had a $750 outboard knicked, ahead by a lot, we have the house insured but do not own designer anything.

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Sooo ,...  If we know that we a vulnerable.....  Then why do the authorities allow badly built house's to be built in "KNOWN" dodgy areas.

It is .....

"Repeated stupidity inorder to make $$$$ inorder to pay for the outcomes of repeated stupidity! "

 

 

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The mayor has already admitted Council liability hasn’t he (a lot of those houses shouldn’t have been built apparently). What a drongo. 

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As an engineer I totally agree with him, stupid to build in what is so obviously a flood plane in Ranui....

If this cyclone sets up bad its going to be real bad

New Zealand Weather Forecast - Valid for:- 1800 UTC Mon 13 Feb 2023 (1800 GMT Mon 13 Feb 2023) (metvuw.com)

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Are IT Engineers Engineers? :P

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No and these days they barely count as little more than code monkeys... I say this both with software, civil, mechanical and medical degrees and work experience backgrounds. The term software or IT engineer is now literally one you can pick up with a free online quiz or a freebie with any job a marketer creates for themselves. There is no standards for capability nor experience and the professional body is now so fragmented it can barely lay claims to a professional registration of engineers. It is sad to see the industry standards drop this low but it is what it is now. Our only hope is to try to improve professional standards in all fields of engineering... not looking likely with NZ education system.

The best short summary https://xkcd.com/2030/

However data analysis understanding helps in any field but for that you are better with a mathematician or skilled engineering scientist.

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The weather website I prefer for cyclones is https://www.cyclocane.com/   99P as its designated now changed from medium to high risk of forming  a tropical cyclone in the last 6h or so. It'll get a name once it is a tropical cyclone.

Prefer this website to Metservice generally alarmist style reports suitably regurgitated by MSM, probably with a few embellishments.

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Those houses in Ranui were probably fine where they were until West Auckland started taking on a huge chunk of the intensification that Central Auckland suburbs lawyer up to keep out of their area.

If suburbs want to opt-out of intensification then let them, but they need to be paying a targeted rate that pays for the infrastructure in the places where it does happen. Otherwise you're going to get a whole heap of impervious surfaces in places where rainwater could drain previously, and the lowest lying bits that were probably OK if not marginal end up needing to be red-zoned. 

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Jimbo - If people telling the truth are Drongos what description do you give those who speak with a forked tongue and add in lies & deceit.

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