Insurance (Prompt Settlement of Claims for Uninhabitable Residential Property) Bill

I move, That the Insurance (Prompt Settlement of Claims for Uninhabitable Residential Property) Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Governance and Administration Committee to consider this bill.

This bill is about the insurance sector and those that have had their homes insured in order to protect against risks that might cause damage to their homes. Insurance plays a vital part in protecting society from the many risks that we face in New Zealand by making people financially whole following damage to their home which results in loss. The importance of insurers is highlighted by the fact that they contributed billions of dollars for the rebuild of Christchurch and Kaikōura following the earthquakes in those regions. Insurance provides certainty and allows for a far speedier recovery than without it.

A home is the largest asset most people have, and without insurance would be left with little should damage occur to their home. However, I have heard from too many people affected by the Kaikōura, Christchurch, and Seddon earthquakes that dealing with insurance was more stressful than the earthquake itself. There is currently a lack of legislative framework and clarity around settlement offers for insurance claims, which can result in great stress being placed on homeowners who may find themselves waiting long periods of time before a claim is settled. During this time, they’re required to find a suitable accommodation elsewhere for long periods of time, which is disruptive to their lives.

My member’s bill aims to make life a little easier for people who are dealing with the long-term effects of losing their home. This bill introduces a legal time line for insurance companies to assess and present a settlement offer to claimants, and it provides an opportunity for the time frame to be extended in extreme circumstances, at the Minister’s discretion, which will see a faster response and resolution for claimants. This bill will require an insurer to make a decision about a claim, and notify claimants within six months of receiving the claim. This will speed up the process and give claimants greater clarity about when they can expect a resolution, which will help ease stress during difficult times and allow them to get back on with their lives sooner.

While policy holders are required to have their insurance premiums up to date, there is currently no time requirement for insurers to assess claims and make an offer. There must be a clearer understanding of obligations both for the insured and the insurer as to the time it will take to accept the claim and for a settlement offer to be made. In extreme circumstances, the Minister will have the discretion to grant an extension to the six-month deadline.

The detailed provisions of the bill have been studied by insurance companies and the Insurance Council. The communications I have received from them have all generally been supportive of the bill, with no major issues raised. I look forward to any issues that are identified being considered by the select committee. This is an important bill for the insurance sector and for everyday Kiwis who own a home. It’s important that after events like the Kaikōura, Christchurch, and Seddon earthquakes, we work to identify lessons and make changes to improve our responses for future events. Putting into law a deadline for insurance companies to make an offer to claimants will be a step forward.

I feel privileged to have the opportunity to develop legislation that will bring immeasurable benefits to New Zealanders. As such, I’m very pleased to move this bill through its first reading. Thank you.

Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker. Look, first of all, congratulations to Mr Smith for having his bill drawn, and good on him for recognising the struggles that people face when dealing with insurers. Unfortunately, this bill does not come close to addressing those issues. They are issues which faced Cantabrians for a decade, and they have struggled to resolve them, and the Government of the day did pretty much nothing about it. This bill is a bill which is well meaning but it’s utterly misplaced, and what is needed is a far wider review of some of the obligations.

I am concerned that the key clause in the bill actually doesn’t do anything at all. The key clause is clause 9, and to look at it, it’s got three key points. One: it says that this bill relates to houses that are uninhabitable. Well, we know for a fact that in a disaster, many houses are significantly damaged, many are not as good to live in—they’re colder, they’re draughtier, they’re crooked, things don’t work as well—but they pass the threshold of inhabitable. So this would only touch on a tiny fraction of the damaged houses.

Then, in terms of clause 9(1)(a), the insurer must “take all reasonably practicable steps to ensure that the claim is processed as promptly as possible;”—that’s existing law. That changes nothing at all. There’s already an obligation to act reasonably, in good faith, and promptly, so that’s a meaningless clause.

Then the real problem is the most important bit—paragraph (b): “decide whether to accept or decline a claim”. That’s actually step one of about five steps in an insurance process. The very first thing that happens is a claim is made. So the homeowner says, “I’ve got damage, and it falls within the policy.” The next step is for the insurer to look at that question and say, “Yes, it does fall within the policy, and there’s no reason not to pay the claim. Your premiums are up to date. It’s not a fraudulent claim.” It’s actually a very simple and very much a preliminary question. The next question is: what is the extent of the damage? The next question is: how do we propose to resolve the claim? And the final step is the actual settlement of the claim.

In my experience in Christchurch, over many years dealing with insurance claims, I had probably two or three issues of there not being an acceptance of the claim, and there were only two reasons for that. One was fraud, where the claimant had told lies, and the other was the insurance premiums were not up to date. So it’s not the problem. The problem is the tortuous process of assessment and, ultimately, the negotiations around settlement, and, unfortunately, this bill does absolutely nothing to address those.

Since Labour has got into Government, we have done a whole lot of things around disaster insurance. We have addressed the Earthquake Commission (EQC) issues. The other thing I’ll note in respect of this bill is that it does nothing in respect of the EQC. It, in fact, says the six-month time starts to run only once EQC has resolved its claim, and under the National Government, the EQC would take years and years. In fact, when I entered Parliament, six years after the earthquakes, there were still unresolved initial EQC claims. That’s no longer the case, and the reason is that this Government, under the then Minister Megan Woods, sorted out EQC, reviewed it, and got on with it. We also set up the Greater Christchurch Claims Resolution Service (GCCRS) to speed up claims and to assist homeowners in resolving those issues, and we also set up the earthquake tribunal to make access to justice quick, affordable, and effective—things which the Government on the other side never did. It sat on its hands for years and years.

So, yes, Stuart Smith, you are right that we do need to help and put systems in place to expedite insurance claims, particularly around disaster insurance. We’ve been doing that, and it’s something which we are committed to keeping doing.

So this bill, well meaning though it is, actually does not correctly understand the framework for insurance settlement. If we’re going to go down this road, it’s a much more detailed and comprehensive revision that we need. So simply to say that a claim must be accepted does nothing. Even in the speech of the member, he talked about prompt settlement of claims, and you’re right: the prompt, accurate, and fair settlement of claims is what we should be aiming for. But in this piece of draft legislation, it does not address settlement of claims; it addresses acceptance of claims. The question this bill actually seeks to answer is whether the claim actually gets in the front door, not whether it is ultimately resolved.

It really just illustrates a lack of understanding. I’m not surprised that the Insurance Council isn’t too worried about this bill, because it does pretty much nothing. This House should not indulge in pretty much futile legislation. So the legislation looks good, dresses up nicely—and good on you for letting your constituents in Kaikōura know that you’re a busy MP—but it does nothing at all.

In terms of the obligation to take all reasonably practicable steps—in fact, the concern I have there, in clause 9(1)(a), is it arguably dials down the obligation, because, in fact, an insurer has an obligation, which approaches a fiduciary obligation, to act in good faith, to put forward, to take into account, the interests of the homeowner. Now, don’t get me wrong, I saw many insurers who didn’t do that. The problem wasn’t that the rules weren’t there; the problem was that there was no way to enforce those rules, and that for a homeowner to take that dispute to some dispute resolution process was pretty much impossible, whether it was the insurance ombudsman—it was usually over their jurisdictional limit—or whether it was through the courts—it was pretty much too costly, too slow, and too complex to go through the courts. And that is exactly why the earthquake tribunal was put into place.

Can I just say that that tribunal is a real model for how we should be addressing disputes of this nature—disputes where there is a massive imbalance of power. Yes, in insurance cases, we need to equip insured parties—consumers and homeowners and others—to effectively and quickly resolve those disputes in a way which is compliant with the policies.

Of course, the other kind of thing which doesn’t come out of here is the policies themselves. The policies are often written in such complex terms that it’s pretty much impossible to know beforehand whether you’re going to be covered or not. No one actually reads their policies; they simply trust that the insurer has given them a fair deal. And what we found out in these disasters was that, many times, what the insurers had promised was less than what they had given rise to expect. Then, of course, when it went through the assessment process, the insurer would dial back, would cut back, would slowly chip away at the entitlements: whilst it might have said it was an as-new policy, all of a sudden the brick wall became a brick veneer, the polished wooden floors became a wooden laminate—all of those kinds of things. They’re the kind of things we need to be looking at, not simply “We will accept your claim. Get in the queue. Wait for six years whilst we think about how we’ll settle your claim. We’ll get back to you. Trust our experts. Trust our quantity surveyor. Trust our engineer.”—no.

The GCCRS is another fantastic model where there are independent experts which can run a peer review, a good-sense check on the pretty much self-interested approach of some of the experts who provide reports to insurers.

Look, I’m not going to pretend there’s not work to be done in the insurance sector. There is. And I don’t want to suggest that Stuart Smith isn’t well meaning and doesn’t have his heart in right place here. He clearly does, and good on him. But this bill is too little, too late, ineffectual, futile, and it’s not something we can support on this side of the House, because we want to do more and better. That’s what this Government has done with the review of EQC, the Greater Christchurch Claims Resolution Service, and the earthquake tribunal, and really turned around what’s gone on in Christchurch and in Kaikōura as well. So to the member, I’m sorry—good on you for doing it, but it’s not something we’ll be supporting over here.

We all understand that insurance is vital in our society. Most of us have experienced some kind of claim against damage, for example a car incident—it happens quite often. That has happened to me, actually, recently. So it is kind of stressful to have some kind of accident, but at the same time, if you have good insurance, if you are confident that this thing will be sorted quite quickly, then you would feel less stressed and therefore you’ll be able to focus on something else, so you can move on with your life.

But an earthquake is actually more, of course, stressful. As an Aucklander, I do not have this kind of experience, an earthquake, but Kaikōura, Christchurch—all these places experienced earthquakes, and residents there, I can imagine, must have gone through a stressful time. If you can’t sort out accommodation, can’t sort out your claims in a timely way—you can imagine how miserable, how stressful, these people’s lives would be. This bill is indeed a very good bill because it helps people and it makes sure that the claims will be sorted quite speedily, in a timely manner, for those who can no longer live in their accommodation, their properties. This is a very important bill, because if people can’t live in their properties, they have to find a place to stay, and they do not know when the issue will be sorted. They do not know whether financially they will be able to sustain this kind of stressful ordeal. So this is the purpose of the bill—basically, to set out a time frame, to set up legislative framework, to make sure that these issues can be sorted.

The bill also envisions some kind of difficulties, some kind of extraordinary conditions. In those conditions, the time frame would be longer. So this bill indeed has all the details to help those who are in difficulty to find a way out, and the hard-working MP Stuart Smith must have contacted many, many constituents and must know all sorts of stories. So this is the motivation to help those people who are in difficulty to get help in a speedy way.

Now, actually, I did a quick search online to see the experience of getting claims sorted. I’ve found that earthquakes—this is a survey. They found that earthquakes caused enough uncertainty and stress “long before you or your organisation has to deal with a complicated claims process”—right? The survey also has found that many people find dealing with insurers to be incredibly confusing, overwhelming, and long-winded. So it is a challenging process, and they don’t know what to do. They have no time to deal with a very complicated case, they have no experience in dealing with complicated cases, and they have no idea when this will be sorted. You can imagine how stressed people can be.

So this bill tries to make sure that the insurers need to act quickly or in a timely way. If there is a necessity for the claims to be extended, under certain circumstances it can be extended, and the Minister would have the discretionary right, basically, to make decisions in some circumstances, so it is not like one bill for all. It is a bill which tries to find a way to help the residents who have no place to stay, who want to get out of this particular ordeal in a legal and proper way. So I support the bill to the House.

I rise to speak on the Insurance (Prompt Settlement of Claims for Uninhabitable Residential Property) Bill. It is, as we’ve heard from my colleague Dr Duncan Webb, an anodyne bill, an inoffensive bill, an ineffective bill, perhaps a mis-focused bill, a bit of a nothing bill, a well-meaning bill. I would like to suggest that the member who proposed this bill is only one of those things, which is well meaning, but the bill itself achieves nothing. He is, of course, well meaning, but the solution he proposes here is a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist.

I agree, and we agree, on this side of the House, that there are, in fact, real problems with settlement processes, with the length of time it might take. We agree that there are problems with the complexity of policies. We agree that there are problems with the way that insurance companies can reduce the amount that is available for settlement. We agree that the complexity of policies might make life difficult for the insured. But where we disagree with the member is that this bill solves those problems. It doesn’t.

So as I said: anodyne, inoffensive, ineffective, a bit of a nothing bill, mis-focused, and not an effective bill. As Dr Duncan Webb said, it’s no wonder that the Insurance Council of New Zealand is happy with it; there’s kind of nothing here to be unhappy with, and that’s the reason that we are not going to support this bill any further.

It was very interesting listening to Dr Webb, because he is, of course, an expert in insurance law. He spent a lot of time following the Christchurch earthquakes working with the people in that city who were affected by claims and by difficulties with insurance companies and the Earthquake Commission. So he understands the detail of how insurance works, really, really effectively. And Dr Webb pointed to the issue in this bill in clause 9. He says that clause 9 doesn’t focus on the right part of the problem. The easy part of the problem is right up-front, where the insurance company decides whether or not to accept a claim. In fact, this is the operative clause of the bill, which says that the insurance company has to decide whether to accept or decline the claim and notify the insured of this decision within six months of receiving the claim. But, actually, insurance companies do that anyway, so this just is not actually an issue. The problem with insurance companies arises during the process. So that critical clause, 9(1)(b) actually achieves nothing, and that’s a real shame—what a real shame—because this bill could have done something.

I want to just focus on a particular issue that I noticed in the interpretation clause too, which is where it talks about an “uninhabitable property”. An uninhabitable property, according to drafting of this bill, means a “residential property that has been destroyed or is so seriously damaged as to be unsuitable for living in.” But what does that exactly mean? What does it exactly mean? You see, there’s a real problem that some residential property is currently unsuitable for living in, but people live in it anyway—garages, tumbledown houses, all the sorts of things that we are trying to fix on this side of the House.

So one question that would be raised, in that respect, is whether the property had become uninhabitable due to the event—the earthquake, the flood, whatever—or whether it was uninhabitable in the first place anyway, and that, of course, would avoid an insurance claim. But the other thing is that people have different standards of uninhabitable. I suggest that, like the operative clause of this bill, that particular way of definition actually adds no substance to the bill.

So because this bill doesn’t actually address the critical issue, which is how to go through the settlement process—because those settlement processes are currently being addressed already by processes that this Government has put into place—and because, although it is a well-meaning bill, it achieves nothing, on this side of the House, that it is not worth spending a select committee’s time on it or spending the time of insurance companies on it—giving hope to people where none actually exists, because the bill achieves nothing. We would have a line-up of people submitting on this bill and yet, at the end of the day, it would be a nothing.

So for those reasons, on this side of this House, we will not be supporting the bill.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It is a pleasure to rise on behalf of New Zealand First—unfortunately for the member opposite, in opposition to this piece of legislation. The reasons are that it kind of missed the mark in terms of timing, missed the mark in terms of intent, and we’re already on the substantive issues that were raised by the member in his opening speech. This Government realises there’s still work to be done, and we’re working on it. So we thank the member for his well-meaning messages, but, thank you, we’ve got it under way. Cheers.

Thank you, Madam Speaker, for the opportunity to stand in support of the Insurance (Prompt Settlement of Claims for Uninhabitable Residential Property) Bill, moved by my good friend Stuart Smith, a hard-working member of Parliament who has himself seen many of his constituents go through the stress that is going to be addressed in this bill.

The bill says that any property which is uninhabitable because of an incident should be settled by the insurer as soon as possible. There should be a time frame. For example, if the person who pays a premium hasn’t paid the premium, he can’t claim it if the incident happened on the day the premium was due. There’s a time frame, and you have to pay the premium on time, whereas on the other side, the insurance company don’t have any deadline with how long they will take to settle the claim.

So I can clearly say this can only be seen by someone who has gone through that kind of trauma. I have gone through that kind of trauma when my business was burnt out. The premium was paid on time, but the insurance company took a long time to settle it. It was really stressful for me personally that I did not have a business to run. I didn’t have the capital to reinvest, and that kind of thing happens when there is an incident.

So I support this bill, and I can see that the Government members are just opposing it because of the reason of opposing it. But it is a very good bill. I was hoping that some of the sensible members could stand and support this bill to the next stage. If they have got any issues, those could be addressed during the select committee process. I am really disappointed with the Government. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise to speak to this Insurance (Prompt Settlement of Claims for Uninhabitable Residential Property) Bill and congratulate the member who has brought it. As others have said, it does appear to be a well-meaning bill. The Green Party will not be voting for it today only because we do feel that although there is a problem in this sector, and others have touched upon it, and delay and settlement claims may be one of those problems, there are others and there needs to be a more comprehensive approach to solving these problems, where fairness for those experiencing loss of property—and often in really stressful situations, as we all know, including those of the big natural disasters like Christchurch and Kaikōura and others—needs to be at the heart of the processes that we review and put in place here.

There is other work under way that the Government is going to do that for this sector. But to introduce this type of reform in an ad hoc way and to introduce just one solution, which is to impose arbitrary time limits on settlement without putting in place other measures to also guarantee fairness, to guarantee a fair process in terms of enforcement, and to facilitate people to understand their rights and to make sure that those rights are there in the insurance claim contracts, does seem to be solving a problem that’s not quite at the core of what people are experiencing when they experience unfairness in their insurance claims.

So we will be voting against this bill, but we are cognisant of consumer rights issues in this sector and we will work with the Government to continue solving them in a more comprehensive way.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise to take a short call, but before I do that I’d like to congratulate the member sponsoring the bill on having successfully progressed the bill to this stage. After listening to the detailed analysis from my learned colleagues Dr Duncan Webb and Dr Deborah Russell, there is no need for me to repeat the key points behind our decision not to support this bill. The bill is well-intentioned, no doubt about that, but the bill does little or nothing to address the issues in question. We can’t support it. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Speaker, for the opportunity to speak on this, the Insurance (Prompt Settlement of Claims for Uninhabitable Residential Property) Bill. I start by paying acknowledgment to the sponsor of the bill, my colleague Stuart Smith, the hard-working member of Parliament for Kaikōura, an area that, of course, knows a thing or two about earthquakes and related matters. At this reading, it’s appropriate to understand the intent of the bill and the various things that it looks to do. The detail can come later if and when—and I say that hopefully—it proceeds to a select committee for consideration and beyond, so that the issues that are raised in here by Mr Smith have the opportunity for the attention that they deserve.

Dr Webb, on the other side, made a number of criticisms of the bill that I think were unfair, and I want to raise a couple of those in passing as well as, obviously, comment more positively on the things that the bill will do besides those. One is that Dr Webb said that the bill does nothing. It doesn’t do everything, certainly, and the sponsor of the bill wouldn’t claim that it does, but it does do something, and it does something quite meaningful. It relates to the acceptance of a claim. Now, that’s the starting pistol fired at the start of the race. So when Dr Webb says in effect—and I paraphrase, I think, fairly—that the bill doesn’t represent the whole running of the race and therefore the starting of the race is unimportant, I think he misses something that is quite significant, which is that for people who are making claims that are not yet accepted, to even get off the mark, if I may extend the metaphor, is often a very difficult and stressful and time-consuming thing in itself.

The bigger picture, then, is that we’re talking about a framework where there are obligations that already exist—yes—and Dr Webb acknowledges issues of enforcement—yes. That’s fine as far as it goes, but the point about having a specific time frame that Mr Smith’s bill does is that a claimant is able to have a line in the sand on which to hang their hat, if you’ll excuse the mixed metaphor. They will have something to hang on to when engaged in a process that is more concrete, more certain merely than an obligation to act in a fair and reasonable manner or within a time frame that is as soon as practicable or other similar phraseology. It is helpful, I say to Dr Webb, actually to have something a bit more certain than that, a point at which one can start jumping up and down.

I note that the bill prohibits contracting out, and I think that’s appropriate. The reality is that in this type of situation, there is a power imbalance between the insured and the insurer, and so I think it’s right and quite sensible that my colleague is stating, if I’ve understood the detail of the bill such as I’ve looked at it—and I must admit that I haven’t done so in huge detail. But it seems to me that that’s an important feature to ensure that everyone is bound by this regime so that there can’t be any persuasion not to be able to enjoy its protections.

I won’t say much more than that, except, again, as I say, a very worthy purpose of the bill. I think some of the key features are really valuable, and a faster response and resolution for claimants is something that every member of this House should be on board with.

Thank you very much. At the heart of this bill—and I understand what the member proposing this is trying to do—is trying to address the imbalance that exists between two parties to a contract. In New Zealand, we found during the earthquake sequence in Christchurch, in Canterbury, that we are some of the most insured people in the world, and we have a trust in the contract that we make with our insurer that when things go wrong, we have an expectation that that contract will be honoured. What we found in Christchurch—and I know this intimately well because I’ve had hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of families come and sit in my office—is that the weight of power that sits within the insurance industry is strong and powerful. And in a case like what happened in Christchurch—and I’m sure what also happened in Kaikōura, which is why the member has brought this bill to the House—the power imbalance is way too strong for ordinary New Zealanders to fight against.

Having a date to actually accept a claim does not deal with the basic unfairness of this, which is that from that point on, as a claimant, you are basically not in negotiation; you’re actually in battle with the insurance company. The insurance company is doing its best to settle for the least amount, and you, as the homeowner, are doing your best to get what you want, which is your home repaired. Many of the difficulties that we had in Christchurch with constituents in Christchurch East—and remember, in my part of town, we lost the most homes. The difficulty that we had was, actually, in establishing our rights as homeowners to have what was in our insurance policies, whether that was, you know, total replacement or as new. These were issues that were debated for years and years and years. In fact, I still have a small cohort of constituents who are still on my books; we are still battling to get their homes repaired, nearly 10 years since the first earthquake.

Now, that’s got nothing to do with the acceptance of the claim. It has got everything to do with the settlement process and it has everything to do with the imbalance between Earthquake Commission and the statement of whether you’ve gone over cap or not as a as a claimant. All of these things contribute to the delay, whether you actually have your house repaired and it’s repaired appropriately and your house is actually fixed, or whether you have to go back and have your home repaired not once, not twice—and in the case of one of my constituents, three times—before your house actually is repaired. She was in her 80s, that particular constituent. I get what is trying to happen here, I get that this is trying to redress the balance, but we are talking about something that is far more complex than just putting a date to set to accept a claim.

I want to talk a little bit about what happened for one particular family, and that was with a claim to Southern Response. This is kind of atypical of the claims that my office represented. We had to find engineering reports, we had to do things like hydrology reports, we had to find a whole lot of information to stack up the argument that this family had that their house was not repaired appropriately, and it was going to cost a lot more than the insurer was willing to settle for. There were things that happened in Christchurch that should never ever happen again. You should always lift the carpet to check if the foundations have been damaged, and that was one of the things that, during the scope of works process, didn’t happen.

So while I commend Stuart Smith for wanting to address this issue, and it is a real and live issue, I’m sorry we won’t be supporting this bill on this side of the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. We’ve just heard the most thoughtful speech and well-thought-out speech from the other side, in opposition. I pay tribute to the Hon Poto Williams. She’s a very capable Minister and she may even have a promotion coming as soon as today. I hope she does.

The main thrust of the opposition to the bill was that this wasn’t going to solve everything. It’s not. I never claimed it would at all. But then we heard, I think, Fletcher Tabuteau let slip that they’re working on something. Well, it’s been three years of this Government and they’re still working on something. Then there were references from Dr Duncan Webb that they had put these great things in place, like the insurance tribunal. Well, the insurance tribunal appointed a judge who has Family Court experience. I don’t doubt he’s a very capable judge, but there’s a heck of a difference between Family Court issues and insurance issues—they’re vastly different—and that may explain why it’s been so unsuccessful. The tribunal’s had 113 applications to deal with the issues that this bill would go part-way to deal with. Out of that, they’ve resolved 32—just 32—with an average time for a judgment of 123 days. It is painfully slow. Our Government promised so much from this tribunal and it’s delivered very little. The reason is, of course, because it’s such a complex issue.

This bill will in fact make some difference—and I accept some of the criticism from the bill. Some of it is very minor and could be dealt with in select committee. But the main thrust of it is to actually have the claim accepted or declined and have a settlement offer put in front of the claimant. That hasn’t occurred for months—many, many months—well over six months, and that uncertainty this bill seeks to resolve.

The bigger disadvantage for an insurance company the moment they make a settlement offer is they have to provision for it. Now, one small insurance claim of half a million dollars is large to the homeowner, as an example, but it is not large in insurance company terms. But in terms of a large event, that would be multiplied by many hundreds, thousands, perhaps. Once an insurance company has to provision for that claim, they need and want to get it off their books as quickly as possible. So the argument that they’ll simply make low-ball offers to fulfil their obligation just doesn’t stack up, actually. There will always be a gap between what the claimant wants and what the insurance company wants to pay. And there should be, because the insurance companies are taking everybody’s premiums. So they have to be very careful about what they pay out and only pay out what they legally have to, and, likewise, the claimants have paid premiums over a long period of time and they want to maximise their opportunity to get an insurance payout. There will always be a bit of a crunchy meeting of minds, and eventually it will be resolved.

To try and deal with that in a bill and to make that be rushed through that last bit of the process would be incredibly difficult and simply impose more unfairness into a situation when people are dealing with the high stresses of losing their homes. This bill, though, allows the claimant to get to that point so that they can actually have a settlement offer in front of them, and it would enable them to move on with their lives.

I think it’s a great step forward to put this bill forward. I’ve heard very weak arguments against. The only exception of a good response came from the Hon Poto Williams. It’s unfortunate that someone like Duncan Webb couldn’t have brought something more to the House than his very weak arguments that he put forward. So with that, I commend my bill to the House. Thank you.

Bill read a first time.

Bill referred to the Governance and Administration Committee.