Te Anau quake exposes cracks in New Zealand’s disaster insurance scheme
Residential damage moved directly into the claims system. According to RNZ, Southland Mayor Rob Scott confirmed the region had escaped relatively unscathed: “I’ve heard so far that everyone is OK, and there’s been a little bit of damage to some of the properties in terms of cracking in houses and the like.” Fiordland Community Board chairwoman Diane Holmes told 1News she had lodged an insurance claim after counting cracks throughout her home. “We were just sitting on the couch watching The Rookie when Phil said, ‘I think there’s a quake coming’ – then boom, everything started moving,” she said, adding the earthquake had dominated conversation across Te Anau: “Everywhere you go, that’s all anybody wants to talk about – where they were, what they felt, [and] whether they’ve got cracks in their walls.”
