I don't understand why the reinsurers would be able to threaten legal action against the ChCh council. They could have complained about the land decisions at the time, but instead were happy to have insurance firms sell full replacement policies. Doesn't seem right for them to complain about this now.

They could threaten not to make insurance available in the future, and perhaps this persuaded Key & Brownlee to cut a deal. But in this case the government is showing a severe lack of vision. Why do we have to be beholden to overseas money men? Why can't NZ provide insurance as a public utility for its own people? EQC could be expanded to provide full replacement cover, and disaster insurance could be run as a public utility for NZers. We need the equivalent of kiwibank for insurance!

interesting interviews - i hope David will be able to call Tower's bluff on the repairs and get them to estimate the cost of repairing the foundations to comply with the building code.

however one comment that the financial advisor made in the second interview - that insurance wasn't about being 'better off' afterwards. As if any of us could possibly be 'better off' than we were before September! The insurance companies will certainly do whatever they can to limit liability, and i'm sure would pay out nothing if they could get away with it. We have to defend ourselves, and look out for our interests, both individually and collectively.

there's another potential problem with the orange/white zones: for any houses that would need to be rebuilt if green, the outcome would be much more favourable for insurers if the land turns out to be 'red'. hopefully the land assessments will be fully independent of the house repair/rebuild assessments, but what are the odds of that, when so much money is at stake and these decisions are made out of public view? i'm afraid that insurers will push for streets with higher proportions of rebuilds to be zoned red.