74 C Lucas and T Young
Five of the twelve participants who put in claims described calling their
insurers to discuss these assessments and being told there were no records of
them. While this could be put down to insurers’ systems being overwhelmed
by an extraordinary event, it should be noted that these kinds of events are
exactly what insurers claim to be prepared for. The Insurance Council of
Australia’s ‘Understand insurance’ website, for example, reassures customers that:
Individual insurance companies are accustomed to meeting the claims
demand placed upon them both during normal business and times of
crisis.
(ICA, undated)
In practice, this was not the case in Hobart, and other examples suggest that
in times of disaster, failures in the insurance claim process may be the norm
(e.g. ACCC 2019). This does insurers themselves little harm – faced with
confusion and uncertainty, customers may be willing to settle for smaller
claims, or take a cash payout rather than a managed program of works.
They lost our receipts that we’d sent in three times saying, ‘We’re carrying this $2600 debt and we can’t afford it.’ When I finally contacted
them they said they had no record of any of those communications, no
record that there’s any internal damage, this hole was in the ceiling, all
the doorframes were swollen, stains on the wall.
(Beryl, homeowner, 40s)
The uncertainty of outcome and lack of transparency over how assessments were made, as well as multiple changing insurance experts who
could not be pinned down, and the intractable process of getting repairs
or cash settlements out of insurers had the effect of limiting participants’
resilience. This was particularly hard for participants who had limited
capacity because of age or disability. Beryl, who lives with brain injury,
described how, four months after the event, it was still taking a toll on her
everyday life:
It’s a shambles. And because there’s stains everywhere and people are
still coming to do the assessment I’ve given up on cleaning… because
you feel like you’re living in a dive… And it does take energy to go ‘Oh,
that’s not resolved yet. I have to call them again.’ You know I spent two
hours the other day just explaining my story again and it takes energy.
So, no, we’re not recovered.
(Beryl)
Participants described their resilience as reliant on their ability to manage
insurance rationalities and practices. This meant being constantly available,
Five of the twelve participants who put in claims described calling their
insurers to discuss these assessments and being told there were no records of
them. While this could be put down to insurers’ systems being overwhelmed
by an extraordinary event, it should be noted that these kinds of events are
exactly what insurers claim to be prepared for. The Insurance Council of
Australia’s ‘Understand insurance’ website, for example, reassures customers that:
Individual insurance companies are accustomed to meeting the claims
demand placed upon them both during normal business and times of
crisis.
(ICA, undated)
In practice, this was not the case in Hobart, and other examples suggest that
in times of disaster, failures in the insurance claim process may be the norm
(e.g. ACCC 2019). This does insurers themselves little harm – faced with
confusion and uncertainty, customers may be willing to settle for smaller
claims, or take a cash payout rather than a managed program of works.
They lost our receipts that we’d sent in three times saying, ‘We’re carrying this $2600 debt and we can’t afford it.’ When I finally contacted
them they said they had no record of any of those communications, no
record that there’s any internal damage, this hole was in the ceiling, all
the doorframes were swollen, stains on the wall.
(Beryl, homeowner, 40s)
The uncertainty of outcome and lack of transparency over how assessments were made, as well as multiple changing insurance experts who
could not be pinned down, and the intractable process of getting repairs
or cash settlements out of insurers had the effect of limiting participants’
resilience. This was particularly hard for participants who had limited
capacity because of age or disability. Beryl, who lives with brain injury,
described how, four months after the event, it was still taking a toll on her
everyday life:
It’s a shambles. And because there’s stains everywhere and people are
still coming to do the assessment I’ve given up on cleaning… because
you feel like you’re living in a dive… And it does take energy to go ‘Oh,
that’s not resolved yet. I have to call them again.’ You know I spent two
hours the other day just explaining my story again and it takes energy.
So, no, we’re not recovered.
(Beryl)
Participants described their resilience as reliant on their ability to manage
insurance rationalities and practices. This meant being constantly available,