New Zealand’s Earthquake Commission (EQC) says 88% of residential building settlements from the 2016 Kaikoura catastrophe were completed at the end of last month.

Initial residential building assessments and land settlements following the 7.8-magnitude quake were both 98% finished, while contents settlements were at 96%.

The commission has paid $NZ295 million ($275 million) to insurers that manage EQC customers and $NZ32.19 million ($30 million) for claims it directly manages, according to the latest update. The state-owned insurer is still to finalise about 150, or 3%, of claims for which it has direct responsibility.

“We’ve learned from managing previous natural disaster responses that it’s really hard to forecast exactly how long it’s going to take to finish the last few claims,” it says.

Nevertheless, it is confident it is “well on track” to complete most of the remaining EQC claims by the end of next month.