The New Zealand Earthquake Commission (EQC) has paid more than half of the claims arising from quakes in February, passing $NZ25 million ($24.13 million) in cash, with cases taking an average of three weeks to settle.

Event Response Manager Jayne Lapin says a new claims system that uses both on-site and phone-based assessments has empowered customers to provide damage data, including photo evidence.

This has helped the EQC to quickly resolve 8595 of 14,574 claims for the February 14 and 29 events.

“You can tell Cantabrians know what is and isn’t earthquake damage, because up to 75% of the claims received so far have been accepted and average $4761 per claim,” she said.

She says almost 87% of claimants feel the EQC valued and used their time wisely.

The EQC plans to contact every customer by the end of this month to discuss their claims, and aims to have all claims resolved by the end of the year.

The commission is still resolving claims from the “Canterbury sequence” of 2010/11, and says settlement of the February cases will not slow their progress.

See other story