More than 100 people have gathered outside the offices of Southern Response in Christchurch this morning, protesting against its slow handling of earthquake-related insurance claims.
Southern Response is a Government-owned company tasked with settling claims in the city held by AMI Insurance, which couldn't afford to meet its obligations following the devastating series of quakes in the region in 2010 and 2011.
But more than three years on from the first quake, many policy holders are still waiting for their claims to be settled.
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Protest organisers, multisport legend Steve Gurney and city councillor Ali Jones, say the 100 or so protesters who have turned up this morning are just the tip of the iceberg.
"These are the people who have the courage and energy to turn up," Mr Gurney said on Firstline this morning. "There's a lot of people that won't because they're just totally overwhelmed and frazzled."
"A lot of people are in an adversarial situation and they are already in a situation of conflict, so this may not be something that they felt they could turn up to," says Ms Jones. "We're happy with the number here, we think we'll get more throughout the day, but this is just absolutely tip of the iceberg stuff."
Mr Gurney says Southern Response is failing to live up to its obligations.
"The biggest problem is that they've been tardy, they've been confusing, delaying and offering sums that are nowhere near what the policy legally entitles the policy holder to get paid out."
Ms Jones says even one year would be "way too long" to wait for a settlement, let alone three.
"I just talked to an 86-year-old guy, and his sign says, 'I'm 86, I can't wait'… These people are paying premiums on uninhabitable houses, they're paying accommodation topups because the Government subsidy isn't covering their rent.
"There are people not only being emotionally scarred here, but are under huge financial stress."
Southern Response CEO Peter Rose says the company could "undoubtedly" improve on its service to date, but disputes protesters' claims it has been "lowballing" settlement offers under instruction from the Government.
"We try and provide a fair and accurate, reasonable settlement… if they're wrong in some cases, we're quite prepared to examine them again."
He says the company will speak to the protesters individually today to try and work out what's gone wrong with each of their claims.
"We certainly don't want any of our customers disputing, we'd like to have all the claims resolved as quick as we can," says Mr Rose. "We've got a dispute rate of about 4 percent at present, and I guess that represents the people who are here today. We certainly don't like this – we'd prefer to be getting on with it."
Mr Gurney says the protest will continue for as long as the problem remains.
"It's going to go all day, all night, and tomorrow, next week if need be."
3 News
source: newshub archive
