SHOCKED: Yenda residents have been forced to reconsider insuring their homes following a dramatic spike in premiums.
SHOCKED Yenda residents have been forced to reconsider insuring their homes following a dramatic spike in premiums.
The March floods have pushed Yenda into a "high risk" classification for flooding with some insurers, pushing premiums up by thousands of dollars per year.
Dredge Street resident Liz Irvine called NRMA Insurance last week and was told her next premium, due in December, would be $7000.
Last year, the same cover cost $1400.
"NRMA has been very good up until now - they are one of the few insurers that paid out after the floods," Mrs Irvine said.
"But my husband and I have three kids and there's no way we will be able to afford $7000 a year.
"We're just going to have to take a chance without insurance."
The price hike came as the SES revealed the floods could have been as rare as a one-in 500-year event.
Mrs Irvine had decided to call NRMA after her brother, Eddie Carusi, was quoted almost $10,000 for a year's insurance on his own home.
Mr Carusi's property, which is just outside Yenda, was inundated but floodwater did not enter the house.
"The cost of cover comes to about $750 a month," Mr Carusi said.
"Who can come up with that sort of money?
"It's been proven a lot of water can come through without flooding my house so it just doesn't make any sense."
When questioned about soaring premiums, a spokesman from NRMA insurance told The Area News it was necessary in flood-prone areas to ensure the company could pay claims.
"As we saw in parts of NSW earlier this year, just a few centimetres of water through a whole house can cause a great deal of damage and costs a lot to repair," the spokesman said.
"To enable us to assist our customers during such events, we need to set premiums that reflect the individual flood risk of our customers' properties."
But it wasn't just NRMA that had hiked up premiums.
Yenda Producers, which was heavily affected by the floods, was hit by an 80 per cent increase for "industrial special risk" insurance.
Company secretary Anthony Nehme did not wish to reveal the name of the insurer but confirmed it was not NRMA.
"To have our premium nearly double when we are maintaining the same level of cover is really disappointing," Mr Nehme said.
"The other frustrating thing is that our excess increased ten-fold.
"It wouldn't be so bad if the floods were something we'd had control of, but for it to go to this extreme is pretty hard to take.
"Yenda Prods requires this insurance policy as part of its business so were put in a position where we had to accept the premium and excess increases and pay it."
