A NSW family nursing a sick child has been dealt a second blow after their insurers refused requests for help fix their damaged home following an earthquake.
Just a few months ago, the Mussio family from the NSW Hunter Valley town of Muswellbrook were given the heartbreaking news their 10-year-old son, Tom, had been diagnosed with leukaemia.
WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE: Family faces second blow after son’s cancer diagnosis.
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So they made the difficult decision to relocate to Melbourne to give Tom the best treatment and rented out their much-loved renovated and historic family home.
“It’s really hard to see him go through this,” Tom’s father Troy told 7NEWS. “It’s really hard.”
Shortly after their move, a series of earthquakes shook Muswellbrook — the biggest being a 4.7 magnitude quake in August, with another 4.2 hitting the town as recently as Tuesday — damaging their family home and leaving large, deep cracks in the walls.
“It’s been emotionally devastating to see,” Troy said.
“It was a beautiful family home and just seeing the damage that’s been caused.”
The damage was estimated at $80,000, but the family were shocked when their insurance company, Allianz, refused to pay.
The insurance company blamed general soil movement for the damage, telling the Mussios it would cost thousands for another opinion.
Allianz told the ABC it would review the Mussios’ claim based on additional evidence provided.
“We’re just fighting a monster, and we’re probably not going to win,” Troy said.
But the family are not the only ones in the area facing a fight to get insurance companies to pay out for earthquake damage.
Noting the shire had ”experienced three earthquakes in late August and early September with nearly 50 aftershocks”, the council said that of 200 responses to its survey, more than 90 per cent reported earthquake damage to their properties, with 49 per cent lodging insurance claims.
But 51.5 per cent of those claims have been rejected and the outcome of another 39 per cent is still unknown.
Only 9.5 per cent of these claims had been approved by this week — a total of just nine claims.
“The response from insurance companies has been a joke. They have taken so long to assess the claims only to reject them, leaving people in limbo and wondering what’s the point of insurance,” Muswellbrook Mayor Jeff Drayton said when the survey results were released.
“It’s been very distressing,” he later told 7NEWS.
“There’s a lot of angst amongst the community.
The insurance industry’s peak body, the Insurance Council of Australia, told 7NEWS it expected the majority of earthquake claims to be fully or partially accepted.
A federal parliamentary inquiry last month released its report on insurance companies’ responses to the 2022 Queensland floods and made 86 recommendations for “ a fairer system in the future”.
“Too many cases were badly mishandled. Inconsistent decision-making meant neighbours received different outcomes after the same event. Long delays caused emotional, mental health and financial strain. More than two years on, many people still can’t go home,” committee chair Dr Daniel Mulino MP said.
The ICA said it “strongly supports those recommendations”.
“Insurers have apologised to those customers that were let down and have recommitted to ensuring service standards are improved,” the ICA said.