More than half of New Zealand’s public assets are uninsured, according to a survey by the country’s Auditor-General.

About 400 public sector organisations were questioned on cover late last year.

Collectively they were spending $NZ280 million ($238.58 million) a year on insurance premiums for assets of $NZ97 billion ($82.65 billion) – but $NZ128 billion ($109.07 billion) of assets were left uninsured.

This in itself is not a cause for concern, because risk can be mitigated in other ways such as self-insurance, the Auditor-General says.

But the report does not reveal whether organisations have held risk assessments and made valid decisions to self-insure or have done nothing because premiums are too costly.

Insurance Council of New Zealand CEO Tim Grafton says further investigation is required.

“The report is good because it has shone a spotlight on the issue and put it on the agenda, but it needs to be the beginning of another conversation,” he told insuranceNEWS.com.au.

“We now need to know how many organisations have carried out sensible and thorough risk assessments.”

He says the survey considers material damage only, and other factors such as interruption costs must also be analysed.

The report says the Canterbury earthquakes are responsible for some of the uninsured assets.

“In some instances, the increase in insurance premiums has made the cost of obtaining insurance prohibitive. In others, the perceived risk of earthquakes has made insurance simply unobtainable.”

It says nearly 40% of policies taken out by respondents included a premium rise of more than 20% from 2011 to last year.