Insurers have paid out $10.2 billion for settlements involved with the Canterbury rebuild, the Insurance Council of New Zealand says.
Insurance Council chief executive Tim Grafton said $6.7 billion had been paid out for commercial settlements and $3.5 billion for residential settlements. All up, 70 percent of all commercial claims had been settled.
The largest insurance payout in New Zealand history was to the Ports of Lyttelton, which would be paid $428 million this year, Mr Grafton said.
Builders reported more than 6000 houses were built in 2013, and that figure was expected to rise to 7000 this year, aided by insurance payouts.
Southern Response lagging
Meanwhile, a member of a group of dissatisfied Southern Response customers says delays by the government-owned insurer in settling peoples' claims for earthquake damage are a deliberate tactic.
About 300 claimants attended a meeting held by the group, Southern No Response, on Tuesday night.
The group received an undertaking from the company just before Christmas that it would look at their cases again and try to resolve them but, two months on, only eleven out of 110 had had their claims settled.
Claimant Cam Preston said he believed that was no accident.
"The longer Southern Response takes to actually repair or rebuild a property enhances their ability to negotiate down," he said.
"We've got a lot of claimants who are too old to fight any longer, and it forces them into a corner where they have to take a cash settlement."
The insurer needed to start listening to its customers, rather than always defending its position, Mr Preston said.
