OPINION: Outgoing chair Mary-Jane Daly reflects on her eight years with Toka Tū Ake
New Zealand is one of the most dangerous places in the world for natural hazards, so is our national insurance scheme prepared for another major event? Outgoing Toka Tū Ake EQC chairperson Mary-Jane Daly reflects on her eight years on the board and is confident the organisation is in a strong position to help New Zealanders get back on their feet after a future natural disaster.
When I first joined the Toka Tū Ake in 2014, I found an organisation under siege, trying to respond to the unprecedented Canterbury earthquakes that it had not been ready for.
Toka Tū Ake had not been connected in the way it should have been and it ended up in an adversarial situation with community, insurers, and stakeholders. Staff were trying their best, but ended up in this siege environment, hiding their ID passes when they went to the supermarket out of fear of being harassed.
This week, as I am stepping down as Toka Tū Ake Board Chair, partnerships are at the heart of everything we do, with our customers, communities and councils we work with, scientists we support, other Government agencies and the private insurers we have partnered with to set up the Natural Disaster Response Agreement (NDRA).
This agreement is a unique partnership, formed straight from the lessons of Canterbury, where insurers will manage EQCover claims on our behalf to give customers a single point of contact for their natural hazard claims following a disaster. We’re one year into the new model, it will continue to evolve as the needs of our communities evolve, but we’re in a great position with strong relationships and a social licence to operate.
The agreement with insurers also includes improved data sharing, and we’re combining this with decades of claims data, research and continuously improving loss modelling to anticipate and prepare for different hazard scenarios and monitor what New Zealanders need from the scheme. This helps ensure we’re ready to respond alongside other Government agencies, local councils, and the insurance industry when the next natural hazard event happens.
Toka Tū Ake is a truly world-leading scheme that ensures that despite living in a high-risk country, New Zealanders can continue to access natural hazard home insurance, paying the same levies for the same cover no matter where you live in the country. Many people also don’t realise how lucky we are to have insurance cover for our residential property through Toka Tū Ake – something that’s unavailable in most countries because private insurers don’t cover land.
Toka Tū Ake is still working hard to rebuild the trust of our community, but we are increasingly recognised for our unique insurance model, our expertise about natural hazards, our innovation, our customer service and our staff can now feel proud to work for Toka Tū Ake.
Looking forward, there is a lot of work to be done for Toka Tū Ake and across the insurance sector, and particularly to prepare for the impact of climate change.
I think it’s fair to say that the insurance sector, like all of us, are finding our way on this, and we don’t yet have all the answers. My only point of reference is to think what we knew about pandemic risks back in February 2020. We knew a pandemic would impact us, but we had no idea just how deeply. Our lived experience means we now understand the impacts for individuals, whānau, communities, health, education, working practices, businesses, the economy…the list goes on.
Climate change will be like COVID-19 on steroids. It will impact people and communities everywhere, and will change the way we live. Unlike covid, there will be no return to normal: our adaptations to climate change will need to be permanent.
Insurance can’t protect us from these impacts; the sector will not be able to continue to insure homes against repeat events in the long term. It is going to take everyone – communities, Government, insurers, councils, businesses, and engineers and planners – working together to find our way through.
It’s part of why Toka Tū Ake is working so hard to help people understand the natural hazard risks we live with in Aotearoa, and to help them to get prepared. Everyone should learn about the hazards where you live, have a plan, have enough food and water, and make sure you understand your insurance cover and that you have enough.
We need to work together to understand and reduce our risks, and to be ready to support communities in need. We’ve learned hard lessons from the past, and I’m confident Toka Tū Ake has the knowledge, systems, and relationships so we are ready to help New Zealanders get back on their feet after a natural disaster in the future.