EQC responds to Christchurch complaints

17/01/2013 2:30:57 p.m.

Sandra wrote:

Requests for Official Information from EQC will take four and a half months, due to "in excess of 1000 reqests for O.I.A." If, when contacting the EQC through their 0800 number, the client was provided with consistant and helpful information,rather than the inconsistant and often contradictary information given now, there would not be a need for "in excess of 1000 requests" Emailed answers relating to clients requests would also allow time for study and reflection, enabling the client to progress their claim, or at least understand the process their claim is subject to. EQC is the author of it's own chaos!

28/06/2011 4:37:01 p.m.

james wrote:

In my situation our house was red stickered after 22 Feb. EQC did their full assessment on 29/03 with their report stating everything had to be replaced. My insurance loss adjuster has reported the house is a total loss with an estimated rebuild cost of around 1 million. A structual engineer employed by my insurance company has supplied a report that the house must be demolished as soon as possible for safety reasons. Our insurance company have even stated that the house is to be demolished. The EQC are in receipt of all these reports but keep holding back what is essentially only 1 tenth of the rebuild cost. Excuse after excuse is offered by nameless individuals in the Brisbane office. They will not give their surnames and will not forward us on to managers for comment. One sypathetic young man even told us that his job as a calltaker was as a "blocker" meaning he had to prevent claimants from getting through to the accounts staff. We are at our wits end all we want is the EQC payouts so we then only have to deal with our insurance company. The longer our money is with EQC the more interest they make and I could be saving interest on mortgage payments.

27/06/2011 11:06:41 p.m.

qj wrote:

Yeah!i agree with hugh ensor,where is all this money MR P.M!AS i'm not from CHCH i feel the vent of your frustration from here.I and i hope every other n.zder have donated gladly toward the cry of your plight,and i hope this has helped ease some of your burdens.But it pisses me off to see you guys up there getting the run-a-round from the E.Q.C and ripped off from these insurance companies.So wheres the money?Will the tax payer donate on the GOVT's behalf.Guess we'll have to wait for the RAT to get back to the WEASEL DEN from his trip to India.

24/06/2011 1:08:02 p.m.

Lisa wrote:

OMG he is so chauvinistic. I have had my share of pratt employers who think they can get everthing for nothing and he should just like one of them. Have they ever stopped to think that a "thank you" or a common "good on ya" would strengthen productivity, well hello. Wake up pratt and resign

24/06/2011 8:30:44 a.m.

Bob wrote:

Seems to me that the research Ms Forbes did before the interview was severely lacking.
I think she will find the EMA does not ever represent pregnant or heavily pained women with period cramps but employers who have to deal with these people

23/06/2011 12:16:23 p.m.

ken wrote:

Hello Kay and Kath, yes, the shortcomings of the EQC are being shown everywhere and on a national basis. A lot of this can simply be traced back to appauling administartive skills; they just do not have the systems in place. Of greater concern is that they've not improved very much since Sept 04. (Some improvement but not much). It really does not take very much thinking to organise a more streamlined way of administrating this claims process. And no, the size of the problem is not too relevant. A well structured computer based system can handle 100 claims as easily as 1,000, or indeed 100,000. Kay, the heatpump plan is yet another mess coming from an already existing mess, that being the 'heating replacent programme' that has been run by EECA and ECAN for many years. After the Sept 4 quake some bright spark had the idea of using it to solve the looming cold weather in houses, BUT, the earthquakes have completely different issues from the original clean heat programme (which was a mess in any case). The ineptitude of the person who thought one programme (designed for one purpose) could simply be transferred to another programme (with totally diffent issues involved) without any changes is mind-boggling. Also, for your interest EECA has an underlying barely hidden agenda-they want all wood burning stopped in NZ. What is more practical or what the customer wants (or what the law says)is of secondary importance and is often seen as a hindrance. Your story is one of many, so for anyone dealing with this EECA programme, be very careful! On the positive side, the 'free' heat punp programme does have many advantages for many people so I do not want to knock it too much. Just understand what is going on behind the scenes.

23/06/2011 8:07:11 a.m.

Ruth Sullivan wrote:

Personally I am horrified at the number of trades people in Christchurch who are seriously in debt because of the outstanding reimbursement of invoices to EQC. Obviously the people managing EQC are not up to the job and should be replaced by management who understand the difficulties faced by everyone waiting on EQC settlements. If a homeowner has EQC permission and approval to proceed with a repair the charges must be settled promptly. Regrettably Ian Simpson has absolutely no empathy or understanding of the situation, how could he, his experience has been dealing with ACC claims which is whole different ballgame. Start performing people or you will be replaced. You must settle trade payments and homeowner claims to enable them to get on with repairs - or the government must find another way of handling and disbandon EQC as an organisation.

22/06/2011 5:51:42 p.m.

Kay wrote:

This guy is a JOKE!! He goes on about 150 heatpumps being installed each day, but he fails to mention that if a homes main source of heating is damaged (e.g. underfloor heating) and the homeowner chooses to have the heat pump installed, then EQC will not pay the cost to repair the original damaged heat source. People have paid their EQC levies promptly and as required, but yet they take forever to payout on claims, this is not acceptable and EQC needs to step up their game to meet the demand of the people and process these claims faster. Note: 250 people in a call centre does not mean anything if they are not able to answer the questions people have and give bullshit excuses as to why. EQC may as well have monkeys answering calls.

20/06/2011 8:06:53 p.m.

Peter Soundy wrote:

I am a senior member of the Avonside Comunity Group and can not help our residents. Please carry on with this direction as our organisation can not get any answers either
The Councilors are also frustrated they can not assist us as the EQC has the purse strings and are not performing
This whole sorry problem should have been handled by the Insurance companies as they are organised to complete these type problems
EQC are letting all our residents down or is this a Goverment direction

STOP HIDING BEHIND EXCUSES We all now about the Earthquakes this excuse has run out by now we are nine months further into the problems

20/06/2011 10:08:21 a.m.

Letitia Primmer wrote:

Hi, I was one of those who vented frustrations in the caravan last week re EQC. Thank you for giving us residents the opportunity to have our say, you guys are doing a really good job & are our only hope of getting our point across. As for Mr Simpson, he still hasn't anwsered any of our questions. All we want to know, where are our payouts? Payment of tradesmen invoices? Assessment of our homes? We are still waiting on our assessment to be done on our family home & our payout as we are over the $100,000 cap. We still awaiting payout out on our rental property from September, EQC had done final assessment & agreed damage under $10,000 but still waiting on payment! Come on EQC start taking some action and give us answers to our questions so that we can get on with our lifes.