Jenee Tibshraeny: NZ Herald Wellington business editor on the warning for homeowners potentially impacted by natural hazards

Home owners are being warned their insurance claims could be declined if their local councils deem their properties to be at risk of natural hazards.

According to Land Information New Zealand, 25,614 properties have natural hazard risks flagged on their titles.

That means 25,614 properties may be at least partially uninsurable.

NZ Herald Wellington business editor Jenee Tibshraeny explained further.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
With us now twenty four away from seven as Jane
tib Trainey took us through what's going on with homeowners
and their insurance claims and risks, natural hazard risks on
the property you know. Hello, Hi Heather. Okay, So the
warning here basically is if your counsel looks at your
property and thinks there's a flooding risk or a slippage
risk or whatever, puts that on your limb, you might
not be able to get insurance. Is that basically it?

Speaker 2 (00:21):
In a nutshell, yeah, that's basically it. If the council
puts what's called a Section seventy two notice on your
title and limb, then you might have private insurance. But
the Natural Hazards Commission, which is the new kind of EQC,
they won't necessarily settle your claim if the risk that's

(00:45):
been flagged on the limb is, you know, is the
risk that you're claiming for. So if the Natural Hazards
Commission doesn't want to settle your claim, then some insurance
private insurance won't top up that claim. So if you
have one of these notices on your property, then you
might have no insurance cover at all for that particular risk. Now,

(01:09):
the insurance brokers are worried that people don't always fully
understand this. So people when they're going to buy a
house and they just see, oh, Section seventy two notice,
they don't understand that that means you might actually not
get any insurance cover at all from the state insure
or from your private insurer for that peril. So they'd
like a bit more awareness around that. And currently there

(01:30):
are nearly twenty six thousand properties that have these notices
on them, and every year councils are putting kind of
more and more of these notices on as they're assessing
their flood mepping and you know, there's more awareness around
climate change and so on.

Speaker 1 (01:44):
And one of the things that's really tricky about this
as well is if you go to council for anything
like a renovation, it could trigger one of these things,
couldn't it.

Speaker 2 (01:53):
Yeah, look, that's exactly it. I was talking to a
friend who was looking at buying a house on the
limb it's flagged all these flood risks. It's like in
a flood zone and he was like, well, there's no
Section seventy two notice on it. But the thing is
is that if he bought the house, and if he
went to do a reno and had to get a
building consent, then that process could trigger the council to

(02:17):
put one of these notices on, which would you know,
kind of screw them over from an insurance perspective. So
that's the sort of worrying thing is you could buy
a place and you know, be aware of the risks,
and you know your private insurer might look, you know,
frown upon those risks. But then if you get that
Section seventy two notice put on it sort of wax you,

(02:39):
you know, in terms of the state insurer not willing
to provide cover for that, and possibly also your private insurer.
And look, I talked to a couple of different insurers
and they have different sort of approaches towards this. So
IAG will look at this on a case by case basis,
whereas Tower is a bit more hard nosed and you know,
won't won't help you out in this regards. So it's

(03:03):
a tough one. Just another thing to sort of have
to look out for if you're looking to buy a
house or man, if you're in a if you're in
a place and you get hit with one of these,
that's that's pretty unlucky.

Speaker 1 (03:13):
I think you Yeah, that's gonna be tough. Thank you, Janey,
thanks for bringing it to our attention. Generative Shranni, the
Heralds Wellington Business Editor. For more from Heather Duplessy Allen Drive,
listen live to news talks. It'd be from four pm weekdays,
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