page_title: Earthquake Commission
section_title: The Canterbury earthquake sequence
hierarchical_section_title: Earthquake Commission / The Canterbury earthquake sequence
caption_attribution_description: English: Within hours after the ChristChurch (New Zealand) earth quake huge holes opened up in swallowing anything that stood in their way and all around me there was silt spouting up out of the ground.
context_page_description: The Earthquake Commission, is a New Zealand Crown entity that invests in natural disaster research and education as well as providing natural disaster insurance to residential property owners. It was established in its current form by the Earthquake Commission Act 1993, which was a continuation of the Earthquake and War Damage Commission, set up in 1945. It operates under the provisions of that EQC Act and of other relevant law, such as the Crown Entities Act 2004.
context_section_description: On 4 September 2010, a powerful earthquake struck near Darfield in Canterbury. It began a series of earthquakes and aftershocks lasting till around 2016. The most destructive of these was the 22 February 2011 earthquake, centered close to Christchurch, in which 185 people died. EQC received over 470,000 claims, more than 15,000 families lost their homes, and repair costs were estimated at over $40 billion. EQC acknowledged several times during this period that the scale of the disaster was unprecedented. Speculation at the time about the scale of the damage proved to be significantly incorrect.
  In August 2016, the Insurance Council of New Zealand (ICNZ) stated that they were still being handed earthquake claims from EQC from the Christchurch earthquakes, and were thus not able to give a final cost to the insurance industry. In July 2016, EQC had 250 complex cases from Christchurch unresolved, 364 first-time repairs yet to be finished, and 6,144-second-time repairs being handled. If the damage stays "under cap" (i.e. it is up to $100,000 plus GST), EQC assessors dealt with the claim. When the claim goes "over cap", the settlement process is handed to the commercial insurer. This situation led to much double-handling and many inefficiencies, and has been widely criticised. In 2015, the Insurance Council of New Zealand submitted to the government that the process be changed and all assessments be handled by commercial insurers instead. Following the 2016 Kaikoura earthquake, the government agreed to this proposal in December 2016. It was also stated that "under cap" claims in Christchurch that have still to be settled will remain with EQC.
  There is a $1.5 billion NZD excess for each earthquake event. If the required EQC payout exceeds the total of the excess and reinsurance ($4 billion NZD) the remainder of the payout is met by the EQC up to the limit of the Natural Disaster Fund. If the payout exceeds those assets, a Crown Guarantee requires that the Government pay the remainder.
caption: The result of land damage caused by ground liquefaction[20]
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