Two years on…

It’s January 2013, two years after we were flooded in the Brisbane floods of January 2011. Suncorp still refuse to honour the terms of our insurance policy, prolonging our homelessness and emotional trauma.

Background

It’s been an extremely upsetting upheaval, and we just want it to end, and go back to “normal life”.

May 2009 First flood – rapt with Suncorp’s six-month repair job on our home, raved at every opportunity , moved back home Nov 2009

Jan 2011 After 14 months back home, the big flood hit, this time much deeper, and for much longer

Jan 2013 We’ve been out of our home for 30 of the last 44 months

Suncorp denies liability for structural damage

Suncorp accepts that we have a valid claim, and has paid

us cash to cover cosmetic works (plaster, electrics,

cabinetry, paint, etc.), but continues to deny responsibility

for the much-more-significant (and expensive) structural

works, despite overwhelming evidence that it was caused

by the flood.

We will ultimately win at the Ombudsman, but it’s been two

years and we need Suncorp to fix their error now rather

than waiting to be ordered to do the right thing.

The flood

Our upper floor

Front door, from the street, near

peak height

The return

The process

We’ve now had five structural engineering firms (two paid

by Suncorp, three by us) inspect the property. Four have

written extensive reports (one wrote only a two-page letter).

All agree that there are significant structural issues.

Suncorp accept this, but attempt to attribute the

structural damage to anything other than the most

obvious culprit: the flood.

So what has happened?

The consensus of engineering evidence is that the action of the flood water on the fill underneath our slab has caused both hogging – where the slab is pushed upwards by swollen soil – and cupping, where the slab sinks due to the soil re-settling in a more condensed configuration.

How do we know?• Two contour maps were taken of our slab, one by one of

Suncorp’s engineers and one by one of ours, and they were remarkably consistent

• The relevant Australian Standard (AS2870) specifies that height deviations in excess of 1 in 150 are outside the serviceability requirements, i.e. the slab is unserviceable and doesn’t meet Australian Building Code

• This means that across a horizontal distance of 1.5m (150cm), the height deviation must not exceed 1cm

• Therefore, on a plan showing contour lines every 1cm of height difference, the lines should be at least 1.5m apart, if the slab is to be considered serviceable, and you should be able to move a 1.5m diameter circle cleanly between all the contour lines

Our slab

This is a 1.5m diameter circle, to scale with the diagram at right.

Everywhere that you can’t fit this circle between adjacent lines – marked by pink - represents a section of the slab that is unserviceable.

Was the slab damaged prior to the flood?

This is one of Suncorp’s reasons why they shouldn’t be responsible for the

damage, to which we have three solid responses:

1. Suncorp repaired our home over a six-month period in 2009, including

securing some crumbling slab edges, and laying large-format tiles in

several rooms. At no point were any issues raised with the condition of

the slab. As it is now outside tolerance by several orders of magnitude,

and has gradients visible to the naked eye, it isn’t credible that none of

Suncorp’s contractors would have noticed this in 2009.

2. After these repairs, as per our policy, Suncorp handed back the house to

us with the ground floor in “good as new” condition in November 2009, 14

months prior to this flood.

3. We are fortunate to have photographic evidence of the state of the slab in

2009, as you’re about to see.

This is to show that we’re talking about the same sections of concrete. On the next page is a close-up of the concrete itself, from these photos.

Concrete before and after

Have a close look. The right-hand section of slab has several prominent cracks. Can you see any in the left-hand picture? No, apparently only Suncorp’s engineer can see cracks in the left-hand picture. The crack itself is not necessarily of structural significance, but it shows that the condition of the slab in 2011 is not the same as it was in 2009.

The footings have movedThe footings have moved as a result of the flood, resulting in

several vertical cracks in the northern brick wall as per this

photograph, crossing multiple brick courses.

This indicates that the footings, as well as the slab, have been

moved by the soil saturation, and the stress was sufficient to

cause bricks to crack in half vertically.

These cracks exist in several places along the wall, some

more than a metre high.

Suncorp is trying to suggest that this is due to very old

movements, perhaps the ‘74 floods. But we applied exterior

render to the brickwork in 2003, and there are precisely

corresponding cracks in the render outside, so it is clearly

evidenced that the movement has happened no earlier than

2003. Further, there were no render cracks either noted or

repaired in 2009.

Quotes from engineering reports“running a 2000mm builders spirit level over the slabs centroids showed alarming

‘out of level’ readings. That coupled with the obvious radiating cracking from

those centre points also indicated a major occurrence”

“Extremely large changes in levels have taken place towards the centre of the

building in particular … ongoing movement should be expected in the future”

“significant movement has occurred around the dwelling as a result of the 2011

floods”

“a combination of the above mechanisms [heaving and sinking] has taken place

at the property to result in the extreme level differences recorded.”

“the flood event had a significant influence on footing system movement across

the building and as the founding soil moisture conditions are continuing to

change and dry, ongoing movement is taking place.”

Worse: bad faith by SuncorpShrinkage (latent) vs stress cracksSuncorp’s position in their submission to the Ombudsman is that the slab cracks are old "latent cracks" – cracks formed during concrete drying 40+ years ago. They even suggest that one of our engineers agrees with them on this point. This is an extract from Suncorp’s submission:

:

Here is an extract from the source engineering report (discussing possible types of cracks present):

 

 

In other words, the engineer was making precisely the opposite point; that the cracks had obviously only occurred recently and thus could not be shrinkage cracks. Omitting the engineer’s second sentence beginning with “However” is an act of deception and evidence of bad faith.

Should we just live with it?

We asked the three engineers that we commissioned: “Please, tell us honestly if we are

making a big deal out of nothing. If we should just drop this and accept a compromise

repair, tell us now, so that we can stop wasting time and emotional energy, and get back

home. This is from one of the email responses (though all were the same in substance):

“I firmly believe that if you do nothing but simply ‘fill the cracks and re render over the

walls etc.’ not only will movement persist but cracks will re appear to cause an

unacceptable level of defects to a buyer and home owner (too many cracks, gaps

etc…) that will severely devalue your property and unless you heavily patch it before a

sale and simply pass the buck to the poor buyer (which is clearly not acceptable,

particularly since items such as timber rot will eventually lead to collapse) you will

lose a lot of money. The nuance here it seems is that unless the cracks/defects are

not about to immediately cause the house to collapse (by being structurally unsound),

then [engineering firm X] and Suncorp appear willing to just patch it up and move on??

This is inappropriate and unacceptable.”

Why not just repair?

We have no option but to continue this fight.

1. The slab can’t be certified. We’d be allowed to live in it ourselves solely because

the Queensland Government has exempted repaired flooded homes from having

to be re-certified, but the inability to obtain certification would drastically affect re-

sale price, and if ever we wanted to renovate in future, we’d be unable to get a

certification on the renovation.

2. The amount of money Suncorp believe covers repair is insufficient to repair in any

case, because they based it on a cut-price non-fixed quote from a builder who are

unwilling to do the repairs for us on the basis of that quote.

3. No builder, including the one whose quote Suncorp wants to use as the basis for

pay-out, is willing to perform the repairs because they know the likelihood is that

the work will extensively crack, and they bear ongoing liability for repairs under

Queensland’s Home Warranty Scheme (7 years).

The way forward?We have a case active before the Financial Ombudsman Service, who advise they’ll resolve the

matter by April 2013. Even if that timeline is achieved, this would still result in it taking more than

three years to be back in our home. That’s too long by far!

We are highly confident of an eventual win with the Ombudsman. We have ample engineering

evidence, but we want Suncorp to fix it now rather than making us wait even longer for an order from

the Ombudsman. Now that all the evidence is in, and is overwhelming, they should be tripping over

themselves to rectify their error and apologise for the delay. But instead, they are trying to prolong

things even more in the hope that our will to continue will give out before the process completes, and

that’s why we want public pressure: to get them to honour our policy now.

We were planning a protest on the second anniversary of the floods, Friday the 11 th of January,

but due to both the difficulty of obtaining a permit, and vicious harassment, in the interests of

our own safety we have reluctantly decided to cancel this protest.

We nonetheless look forward to having our matter settled soon, and hopefully helping other insurance

customers by our example.

Thanks for reading

Our fight is almost over. Once our case is resolved, and I’ve emotionally regrouped from the nastiness directed towards us over this dispute, I’ll be doing all I can to help other insurance customers who haven’t been so fortunate.

Tracey Bryan