Queenslanders in insurance limbo months after freak storm

Four months after the storm that flattened Tammy Fogarty’s hinterland home and turned her life upside down, she’s still picking up the pieces. This has been a home for 30 years and not being here is is the hardest thing at all to deal with. Her insurance is covering temporary accommodation while engineers decide whether the house can be salvage. But as time goes on, people forget they just get on with their lives. While we’re still dealing with the aftermath and it’s going to be a long time before we’re back to normal again, Queensland is grappling with a $2.2 billion damage bill from last summer’s disastrous storms. Across the southeast, more than 1000 homes were affected. And the QLD Reconstruction Authority is monitoring repairs. We’re always conscious of anyone that slips through the cracks, and this is where the community plays such an important role. For some, the rebuild has just begun. Might be out of your home for six to eight weeks. Who knows? The neighbors here, they’re out of their home, full stop. This Upper Coomera property was so badly damaged it had to be demolished. On Tambourine Mountain, a tree cut this house in half. Repairs are underway. The owner says he’ll be $100,000 out of pocket. Sam Bray’s Wonga Wall and home is among those destroyed. He’s rebuilding it himself. There’s a backlog of insurance claims, with 60% of them still to be processed. For those still waiting for their claims to be assessed, it’s a long, slow process. And even if the claims are approved, many owners face an uphill battle to get their home repaired. Because trades are in such high demand, it would be too depressing to look more than a couple of days in the future at a time in this process.