Houses, baled hay and general farm contents top claims following Southland and Otago region floods
The rain may have eased but the clean-up continues for some farmers and others in rural communities impacted by flooding in the Otago and Southland regions earlier this month.
“As is usually the case following a large flooding event it takes some time to get a picture of damage as farmers need a few days–and weeks in some cases–to go through their property says Emma Town, National Claims Manager.
“Many have now had a chance to do that and to date we’ve received around 130 claims.
“These are mainly for damage to houses, such as flooring and personal belongings, along with baled hay and general farm contents. Other claims have varied from stock claims and damage to farm buildings, including but not limited to, dairy sheds, farm fencing, implement sheds as well as some vehicles.”
“The great thing about being a Mutual though is that we focus on more than the insurance side of things. Soon after the floods we were ringing clients in the heavily impacted regions to check on their welfare and sent an email to some 5,000 clients within the wider region, again to check they were ok and to provide details of available support services in the region.
“Clients really appreciated this, along with us having a strong presence at Southern Field Days, which included FMG’s CEO Chris Black on site for two days. While at the event we listened to clients and in several cases helped them to lodge their claim,” says Town.
Overall FMG has only had a relatively small number of claims that have needed an assessor and all clients who have needed one so far have been visited. Purely from an insurance perspective this hasn’t turned out to be what we’d deem a large event and our current estimates are around $1.2 million across our 130 claims.
Assessing support is still on the ground this week helping clients with their claims.
If people have any further questions about their claim or cover for future events, please call FMG on 0800 366 466.
ENDS
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