We are at a crossroad; if we don’t make the difficult decisions then our insurers will – Editorial

From the eruption of Mount Tarawera to the Hawke’s Bay and Canterbury earthquakes, the Auckland Anniversary flood and Cyclone Gabrielle, there aren’t many parts of the country that have no scars to show from Mother Nature.

We’re a hardy bunch, but this month, when so many were enjoying a Kiwi summer, we were reminded again of how precarious our home at the bottom of the world can be as heavy rain caused deadly landslides and flooding across the North Island.

While we don’t know when or where, what we do know for sure is that a similar event will happen again.

Treasury has warned there is an 80% chance New Zealand will experience another Gabrielle-scale event within the next 50 years. The tropical cyclone in 2023 killed 11 people, and the recovery bill has soared to more than $1 billion.

What we must do as a country is be honest with how we approach preparing and responding to such events. We can’t afford repeated losses of life and property.

An economic analysis report of actions taken shows New Zealand has developed a pattern of throwing a lot of cash at a disaster after it strikes, but we are poor at investing in preventive measures.

“Our key problem is that we tend to respond to every disaster in an ad hoc way,” adaptation expert Professor Bronwyn Hayward, from Canterbury University, told RNZ. “And we’re treating every disaster individually.”

The past two years have shown us that the frequency and severity of extreme weather events are increasing. We now need to be constantly preparing for these events to soften the blow to families and our collective national wallet.

Investment in infrastructure and mitigation cannot come after the storm has swept through.

While some of us would still like to think this is a problem for another time or generation to solve, our insurers are already making some of the tough decisions for us.

AA Insurance temporarily stopped offering new home insurance policies in Westport because of the town’s flood risk. Locals are being forced to use brokers or specialist insurers as standard insurance becomes more difficult or expensive to get.

Residents also said that while AA Insurance had publicised its policy, many other insurance companies were also refusing to take on new customers.

The risk, the insurers are saying, is simply too great.

Westport won’t be the only community to face this harsh reality; several towns and neighbourhoods will face similar challenges in the years ahead.

Isolated groups of people will become even more isolated. Several families living in the Waioweka Gorge in the Bay of Plenty remain cut off, two weeks after dozens of slips came down.

We will all remember the images of utter destruction on State Highway 2 after Gabrielle, which effectively cut off Wairoa, a town of about 5000 people, with supplies needing to be flown in.

Northlanders will be quick to mention the effect on their lives and businesses every time the highway over the Brynderwyn Range has been closed because of another slip. For those reading south of the Bombay Hills, this stretch of road north is SH1 too, our main national road.

A more resilient highway connecting Whangārei and Auckland is finally in the works, but many smaller towns – and those further away from major centres – may never see such an investment in their infrastructure.

If, at this junction, we continue down the same road of reaction, then some communities will face the prospect of being abandoned. If not by their people, then by those holding the purse strings, the insurance companies and the Government.

While we still can afford it, we must act in unity.