I would say easy political points for the new government in...

I would say easy political points for the new government in criticising the old.

They will continue to leave Christchurch to rot, Wellington issues get fixed quickly though.

The unspoken reality is that repairing homes to an as new standard (as required under insurance policies) was a hopelessly impractical requirement. This government is already hitting budget constraints and simply can't afford this, the last government was also a fiduciary nightmare selling off the silver for a song.

Of course the whole thing is ridiculous, the new sum insured regime a sensible compromise - passing risk to the insured. Recent changes to increase rates in high risk areas started by TWR are of great interest.

When I wear my economist rather than my anarchist hat I say pricing signals like this tell people building new houses which spots are safer. Earthquake zones or by the rising seas, not so great.

Andrew Hooker will keep fighting, it's a small part of SHJ's business. Houses won't get fixed properly as it would cost too much.

The government should either do all insurance or none - I don't have an ideological view as long as it's done competently. By bailing out policies at AMI instead and selling it for a song, profits are privatised and losses socialized. The half arsed EQC system caused a horrorshow of arguments.

I don't think government should have bailed out policy holders at all, what I object strenuously is that they paid out the multi-million dollar homes. If you built something like that in an earthquake zone, it fell over and your insurance didn't cover it that's not my f..ing problem as a taxpayer.
At best you get rebuilt a basic house on the taxpayer dime.

The whole SHJ business model is an absolute drain on society- I have a theory that social utility and profitability (ROE) are in general inversely proportional. There's a wealth of evidence supporting such a position.

In summary don't doubt that there's plenty of work for Andrew Hooker but I don't see a major change to the status quo of well established vested interests. There is no zeitgiest or political will, just a lot of wishful thinking from this gov't in the place of the crony "capitalism" of its predecessor.