Overview
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FindOver 90% of claims from the Christchurch quakes have been settled, but that still leaves a significant number of losses unresolved.
It is over five years since the first serious earthquake occurred in Christchurch, New Zealand, and there have been nearly 14,000 aftershocks. The 6.3M quake on 22 February 2011 killed 185 people, destroyed much of the inner city and rendered several suburbs permanently uninhabitable. Cunningham Lindsey has been involved in approximately 30,000 claims and has surveyed in excess of 60,000 damaged properties.
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The Challenge:
Before the earthquakes the Cunningham Lindsey New Zealand company had 185 staff. We lost both Christchurch offices during the earthquakes, but thankfully none of our staff or their families were seriously injured.
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The Solution:
At the height of the earthquake response, our numbers swelled to over 550, and many of the additional adjusters came from Cunningham Lindsey in Australia, the UK, South Africa, Canada, Spain and the US. In normal times the New Zealand office has five chartered accountants. At one stage after the earthquakes we had 56 accountants on board to handle nearly 6,000 earthquake business interruption claims, dealing with customers under great stress, many with businesses and homes in ruins.