jon_d wrote: ↑Wed Jun 04, 2025 8:16 pm
Been thinking about your question Dot......
When we had the 2009 fires go through Taggerty, I was speaking to the assessor and asked him how it worked.
For a partial loss, they would establish the loss, compare it to the value of the house and policy insurance amount. Make an adjustment if necessary and then pay out.
For a total loss, they would pay out the amount on the policy and sign a release.
In both cases, you assume the responsibility to sort it out afterwards.
So, if I was in the position of all this hoo-haa going on, I'd simply approach the insurance company and say "It's a total loss. The building insurance policy is $x,000. Pay it out and let's sign a release." Then you assume the complete responsibility to demolish, plan, seek approvals and then build.
If you're under insured, then, that is and always has been your responsibility.
Most house building insurance policies should be at least 700k. Our's is close to 950k. Crazy as it seems, when you get on the calculators that's what it works out to. 15-25% for demolishing, architects, planning approval, rent while building. project management etc and 75-85% for actual build including having to adopt new building standards and ever increasing costs.
Finally, if you're under insured, don't expect any sympathy from the insurance company. You signed the contact, had opportunity to read the PDS and elected the amount insured.
I guess it depends on what sort of insurance policy you have. Our policy pays out the sum insured, plus up to 12 mths accommodation, plus up to 10% for demolition, plus 12 mths liability insurance or until rebuilding starts, plus surveyors and any other technical services required ..... so close enough to what you came up with in the breakdown.
The part that caught us out, we insured for double what we paid for house and land including contents, 5 yrs later it isn't enough to just rebuild. Covid changed everything, what rebuilding cost before Covid, double it and add 20% per yr, and no sign any of this will change any time soon.
The battle with NRMA is things like, they wanted to pay half of the value available for demolition, we told them to go ahead if they could get it demolished for that money .... they couldn't, it has ended up costing them more than if they had paid us the proper amount, and now they are trying to worm out of paying for the damage their contractors did while demolishing the remains of the house ..... they tried a heap of wiggling and worming out of demolishing parts of the site and have even refused to demolish the "teenage Retreat" which is really just an insulated kit type garage with a side door, claiming it wasn't damaged in the fire, even though the paint is burnt off one corner.
If NRMA had been like Allianz with the workshop, and just paid out as a total loss, it would have been sorted in 6 weeks, but NRMA are looking for every angle to try and minimise what they have to pay by screwing us over.
They even tried a con on Margaret, that if we arranged for our own temporary fence, the rental on the fence they provided would stop coming out of our payout ..... it was only by luck that we didn't before we had a chance to talk to our friendly ex insurance broker .... turned out NRMA was trying to avoid paying for the demolition, the 12 mths liability insurance and the 12 mths accommodation and a handful of other things that were in the fine print in the PDS .... by putting up our own temporary fence, it would have meant we had undertaken to rebuild ourselves ..... so none of the extras would have been claimable ....... The temporary fence wasn't coming out of our claim and has to be covered for 12 mths after settlement, as does the liability insurance, a full 12 mths after settlement ...... the temporary fence is gone now ..... so they are leaving themselves open for anyone to make an injury claim under the liability insurance .... it really does seem like they are working with the lowest priced claims staff they can get and they are spread all over the country. The ... possibly 4th claims rep we have had since this all started, is in WA and apparently has Covid ...... yet they haven't assigned up another claim rep .... it's not like she will be back in a few days ... apparently she has been off sick for a week already
What the assessors says, and the reality of what actually happens, are worlds apart. I just wish we'd had an insurance broker for the house insurance like we did for the workshop, they know all the insurance company tricks and pull them up on it real quick.
Our friendly ex insurance broker has advised Margaret on what the next steps should be and she has started down that path today .... seems there are a lot of hidden things in the whole insurance game that aren't common knowledge to the poor suckers who are trying to fight for what they paid for, so following the correct chain of steps gets things swung back in our favour .... fingers crossed, this will be all in hand by Friday and we can get away 5 days late ...... not that there wasn't a heap of things that needed doing and are getting done in that 5 days
T1 Terry
