An overhaul of claims handling introduced after New Zealand’s devastating Canterbury earthquakes has significantly improved outcomes, with 80% of claims from the 2016 Kaikōura earthquake settled and closed in the first year, the Earthquake Commission (EQC) says, and fewer than 5% reopened.

EQC received almost 40,000 residential building, land and contents claims after the magnitude 7.8 earthquake caused severe damage in the Kaikōura, North Canterbury, Marlborough and Wellington regions.

It triggered a change in the way EQC responds to natural disasters and a new model in which private insurers manage EQC claims on its behalf, giving a single point of contact for the customer, greater efficiency, and better data sharing and loss modelling capability.

EQC says 75% of customers were satisfied with the new claims process.

“We’re proud to have put New Zealanders at the heart of this new model and will continue to work hard as an industry to make the claims process as effortless as possible,” EQC Chief Readiness Officer Josh Lindsay said.

“It’s positive to know the approach we took in Kaikōura – one that simplifies the experience for our customers – is now our new normal.”

The Canterbury earthquakes in 2010/2011 overwhelmed the unprepared EQC – used to just 4000 active claims a year – with 450,000 claims.

“We struggled to cope under this strain. For our Canterbury customers, who had just had their lives turned upside down, our response added a lot of unnecessary complexities and angst to what was already a stressful time,” Mr Lindsay said. “When the Kaikoura earthquake occurred, we embraced the opportunity to adapt our delivery.”

New EQC research has also found simple solutions can strengthen the foundations of hillside homes in New Zealand, where a lot of houses in New Zealand towns are built on slopes, making them more resilient to earthquakes.

BRANZ Project Lead Roger Shelton says because foundations of homes on slopes are taller at one end than the other, or may be of mixed type, a twisting motion occurs, making earthquake damage more likely, and older style foundations showed a clear need for strengthening.

“Some very basic, cost-effective retrofit methods turned out to strengthen the foundations by more than 100%,” Mr Shelton said.

Sheets of plywood fixed to jack-stud walls was found to deliver more than double the performance of unstrengthened foundations. Where access prevented this, extra bracing between foundation piles was an alternative that provided a significant increase in performance.

The findings have been submitted to Standards NZ to review against the current timber framing standard.