It's really not like that at all, I am the only sane one it's...

It's really not like that at all, I am the only sane one it's the world which is crazy.
The question of whether people agree with me is irrelevant to the truth of the matter , the most outrageous idea subsequently proven correct is the most valuable.
I own shares both in Tower Insurance and Shine but don't internalize either as good or bad and suggest flexible thinking is key.
It's not "good" or "bad" for either to succeed only a question of what is probable.
Once everyone thought the world was flat, it took a long time to stop burning witches - people don't respond to rationality when they are in groups (as y'all are in the "capitalist" group while I am in the anarchist sympathizer corner).
True you don't understanding the NZ situation either so here it is short as I can:
NZ has always been earthquake prone.
The NZ business as you put it almost exclusively deals in the ongoing aftermath of the Christchurch earthquake.
The insurer's liability was to rebuild houses as new, under that scope they were all negative equity. Consider building a house v building a city, what we found was massive cost inflation.
This is common in many boom bust industries.
You could argue and perhaps rightly that the insurers should have met their obligation and gone out of business (effectively they were underpricing the risk) but it was equally crazy to rebuild some fairly shonky old wooden houses to as new standard.
On the other hand it was a genuine mistake not a massive fraud like the global financial crisis, I don't think I could have assesssed and priced accurately the risk of a Chch rebuild.
It's just people arguing over money, homeowners, insurers, lawyers with snout in trough value judgements are not useful. Everyone feels entitled that's for sure.
SHJ is reopening cases where various parties involved have failed in their duties, it's been terribly stressful for all. It's now 7 years since the last big earthquake but it may well continue for some time.
In any case "natural disasters" as you put it are no longer the same risk they were, that's another case of driving through the rear mirror.
Next time will be the same but different as we only learn from mistakes.
The main change is that our houses are all now "sum insured" and EQC has been fixed. Sum insured means that I get a fixed cash amount if a house is rebuild - so in the event of a major earthquake the liability to reinsurers is simpler to calculate & the risk of build cost inflation is passed to the home owner.
That's my interpretation of what my insurer did with me and my assessment of likely reason behind it.
I believe these changes and ACC mean SHJ NZ will gradually wind down as cases are resolved. However a friend pointed out a SHJ lawyer on radio nz talking about PFC contamination and suing the NZ govt about that like you are doing in Oakey with the Aussie govt. So there may be some class action work.
Didn't I have some scraps with you on SGH, weren't you one of the big bagholders in that one?
Most everything I say in general is true (my mistakes are in details not the big picture), if it sounds crazy that's all you "buddy".