The Rapid Assessment is an important part of the Christchurch recovery effort with every house in Christchurch being visited in the 8 weeks from 11 March to divide all houses in Christchurch into 5 groups. We had ours yesterday and got the “no structural damage” top ranking which is what we expected.
The EQC or Earthquake Commission is a quasi-govt insurance system. Everyone that has private house insurance pays a compulsory part of their insurance premium to the EQC. I always thought it was bloody stupid since Christchurch doesn’t have earthquakes….mmmmmm.
How it works is that the first $100,000(plus GST) of earthquake damage is covered by the EQC and anything after that by private insurance. Weird indeed, why $100K? This is because when the system was set up in 1979, that amount covered most houses. There was not an inflation component built in. EQC also pays up to $20,000(plus GST) for contents damage.
Our assessor arrived without prior notice (part of the system), looked around the residential area, sat down, tapped away on his ipad (not a 2) and then left, all within about 15 minutes. We now wait 6-9 months for a full assessment. We don’t mind because many other are far worse off than ourselves.
We had our assessment on Wednesday. We unfortunately got the will be revisited in less than 4 months because of major structural damage- in fact the assessor actually said it was "seriously munted!). We sort of knew that so it was good to get it confirmed. He said it cannot be repaired as too much land damage, so we have to wait for that assessment too.
ReplyDeleteI was impressed by their use of technology-hopefully that will speed things up. But it is a mighty big job they have.