Insurers committed 'daylight robbery', inquiry told

An elderly man lives in a rotting flood-ravaged house, with mud high up on the walls, more than a year after disaster struck.

The state of the man’s home in Forbes, central west NSW, was only discovered during a recent visit from Meals on Wheels volunteers.

These are the kinds of people left behind after disasters in rural Australia, as insurance companies deal with country clients from afar, a parliamentary inquiry has been told.

“He didn’t remember that he was insured, he was on his own,” Forbes Shire Council general manager Steve Loane told the committee sitting in Molong on Tuesday.

“He also didn’t know there was any help out there.

“The insurance companies know this … the lack of understanding has impacted our most vulnerable community members.”

A volunteer emptying the house of an elderly woman damaged by flooding in Molong in 2022. (Murray McCloskey/AAP PHOTOS)

The inquiry is examining the response of insurers to the impact of major floods across parts of NSW, Queensland, Victoria and Tasmania in 2022.

Forbes endured several floods, while the nearby villages of Eugowra and Molong were hit by sudden and severe flash flooding on the morning of November 13 that year.

Eugowra did not have phone service for a week after the disaster – which razed much of the village – leaving many unable to quickly contact their insurers, Cabonne Council mayor Kevin Beatty said.

Insurers were either not on the ground after the flood, or only available for a short time.

“Their presence would have been crucial … (but) it wasn’t there and it added to the trauma,” Mr Beatty said.

There were 426 houses damaged or destroyed across the villages in the Cabonne Shire, while 118 community buildings were affected.

Damaged floor coverings and cupboards outside a house in Forbes, in the NSW Central West, in 2022. (Lucy Cambourn/AAP PHOTOS)

The scale of destruction in Forbes was also significant, with more than 100 houses destroyed and 1327 badly damaged, mayor Phyllis Miller said.

Ms Miller said insurers pressured some residents to accept cash payments rather than wait for their claims to be settled.

Often the payments were more than $100,000 short of a policy’s value.

“That is daylight robbery when someone’s mental health and stress is at its very lowest,” Ms Miller told the inquiry.

The community leaders said insurers raised premiums and took a blanket approach to coverage after the floods, despite varying levels of risk across the towns and villages.

Floodwater surged through this house in Molong and pushed out a wall. (Murray McCloskey/AAP PHOTOS)

Kirsty Evans, a Molong local and lawyer, said insurers quibbled with clients over small details, even demanding photos of flood-damaged items long after they had been cleared away.

“It really is a secondary trauma,” Ms Evans said.

“You’re asking the customer to walk back through their premises in their mind and touch and feel everything … while knowing that months earlier it all floated out the door.”

The inquiry is due to sit in Eugowra and Richmond, in the NSW Hawkesbury, this week.