Insurance Council's aim to ‘reduce risk'
The insurance industry wants to be involved in solutions for communities vulnerable to flooding — rather than being eager to retreat, its leading advocate says.
Insurance Council of New Zealand chief executive Kris Faafoi visited South Dunedin yesterday. He was interested in ways risk heightened by climate change might be reduced.
That might include responses ranging from improved drainage to creation of wetlands and moving homes out of harm's way.
"One of our priorities is making sure that we're working with central government and local government to reduce risk for people," Mr Faafoi said.
"That obviously protects them and makes insurance more accessible for the long term."
Mr Faafoi had a catch-up with South Dunedin Future programme manager Jonathan Rowe.
The programme was set up by the Dunedin City Council and Otago Regional Council and is aimed at helping the area to adjust to increased climate threats in the long term.
"In terms of the way that the process has been mapped out and executed to this point, we're really impressed with how they've engaged the community," Mr Faafoi said.
"A lot of the options that the project is putting before the community could go a long way to reducing the risk," he said.
"The kind of methodical, mature and long-term view that they're taking for some of the challenges here is something that the insurance industry is very interested in to make sure that we can be part of it, because insurance for a lot of the people in this community is really important and we want to make sure that we're part of the conversation and hopefully part of the solution," he said.
Mr Faafoi's visit came soon after devastating floods in Tasman and comments by Prime Minister Christopher Luxon that the government could not keep bailing out flooded homeowners.
Mr Faafoi suggested prevention measures could make a worthwhile difference.
"Our message is you can help those communities before you bail them out by actually protecting them by building the kind of infrastructure that they need to protect themselves from those kinds of extreme weather events."
grant.miller@odt.co.nz
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