Part 4: Informing homeowners

Earthquake Commission: Managing the Canterbury Home Repair Programme - follow-up audit

4.1
In this Part, we describe EQC's progress against our 2013 recommendation about improving its communication with homeowners. We recommended that EQC continue to improve its communication with individual homeowners about their claims, giving homeowners as much certainty as possible as early as possible.

4.2
The Appendix provides further information on what we found and recommended in 2013 about EQC informing homeowners.

Summary

4.3
EQC has made improvements to its communication with home owners. However, when we did our work, some homeowners were experiencing a long delay in getting certainty about when the repairs will start on their homes or whether their repairs are over-cap and will be transferred to a private insurer.

4.4
EQC's survey of customer satisfaction immediately after repairs have been completed shows a high level of satisfaction with various aspects of being well informed. However, the levels of satisfaction against these aspects are gradually reducing. At the same time, the remaining repairs are more complex than those completed earlier in the programme.

4.5
EQC has sought advice on how to improve its customer interactions. It has made that advice publicly available.

Improvements and continued activities

Improvements

4.6
Since 2013, EQC has:

  • commissioned a report that has identified the improvements EQC needs to make to its systems and information to improve customer interactions; 18
  • introduced a certainty campaign and squad; 19
  • changed its stance to allow customers in formal dispute with EQC to access advice from the Residential Advisory Service;
  • implemented initiatives for vulnerable people, including a more personal style of communication with vulnerable people through community liaison officers, a wider range of definitions and sources of information to identify vulnerable people, improved tracking of vulnerable people's claims, and acceptance at a senior management level of the need to improve the reliability and visibility of reporting of information about vulnerable people;
  • began setting up a customer query team to manage queries about finalised claims; 20 and
  • participated in the recent In the Know Hub initiative. 21

Continued activities

4.7
EQC's operational priorities have continued to include improving customer contact and communication, and actively managing confirmed vulnerable claims.

4.8
EQC has also continued to engage with community organisations.

The Earthquake Commission still needs to be more customer focused

EQC has implemented several initiatives to improve its communication with homeowners and give them as much certainty as possible. However, some homeowners were getting certainty only in 2015 about whether their repairs are over-cap and will be transferred to a private insurer. Overall, EQC still needs to become more customer focused. As stated in the Linking Strategy to Implementation report commissioned by EQC, "the journey towards a customer focused organisational model and culture is a strategic necessity".

4.9
EQC commissioned a report on its customer interactions. This report identified the improvements EQC needs to make to its systems and processes to improve its customer interactions. EQC intends to make incremental improvements during the remainder of the programme. However, it has decided not to incur the significant risk of a major change to systems while responding to events in Canterbury.

4.10
Representatives from community organisations told us that, in their view, it remains challenging to get access to decision-makers in EQC on behalf of their clients. There is also a lack of transparency with some of EQC's decision-making processes, particularly in terms of complaints resolution.

4.11
However, customers in formal dispute with EQC are now able to access advice from the Residential Advisory Service. Before early 2014, there was an understanding that EQC claimants already in EQC's complaints process could not be assisted by the Residential Advisory Service advice.

4.12
EQC's survey of customer satisfaction immediately after repairs have been completed shows a high level of satisfaction with various aspects of being well informed (see Figure 7). However, the levels of satisfaction against these aspects are gradually reducing.

Figure 7
Percentage of Earthquake Commission customers satisfied with information provided during a home repair

Figure 7 Percentage of Earthquake Commission customers satisfied with information provided during a home repair.

Source: Graph based on information provided by EQC.

4.13
For customers who reported being dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with the quality of work, the survey includes a question about how well matters of concern raised with the contractor or contract supervisor of a repair hub have been addressed. 22 More than half of customers in most weeks felt that their concerns had not been addressed satisfactorily. EQC can then follow up with customers who express dissatisfaction.

4.14
EQC told us that the reason for the decline in satisfaction for these various "experiential" measures seems to be the length of time that it has taken to resolve the later repairs. EQC has also identified that maintaining customer satisfaction is more challenging because the remaining repairs are more complex than those completed earlier in the programme.

4.15
Satisfaction has fallen at the same time as customer commitment rates to repairs and repair time frames. Commitment rates refer to how many and how quickly the remaining customers who have not yet agreed to a managed repair or a time frame for a managed repair are making a commitment to these.

4.16
EQC prioritises first-time repairs. This means that any repairs that require further work, such as unanticipated additional work, will be completed later unless for some reason the additional work has been deemed "urgent".

4.17
EQC has not completed repairs for vulnerable people significantly sooner than for other customers. However, it has, on average, issued work orders to begin repair work sooner for those customers. Large numbers of people have been identified as vulnerable, and efforts have been made to work with vulnerable people in the programme.

4.18
EQC's view is that it does not have control over the time the actual repair work takes to start and complete because that is determined by the nature of the earthquake damage. Because of changing circumstances and the availability of information about who is vulnerable, the number of people identified as vulnerable has changed over time.

4.19
The programme allows EQC to reach cash settlements with homeowners instead of directly managing the repair. We found no evidence of vulnerable customers having a higher or lower rate of cash settlement in the programme. Cash-settling rates for vulnerable people were comparable with the overall rate for EQC customers.

4.20
Since 2014, EQC has used a more case management-like approach to its work with vulnerable people. This involves more personalised interactions with claimants and tailored explanations of their options.

4.21
There are still issues with the quality of EQC's data, including poor quality data about contacts with EQC's call centre and inconsistent data about vulnerable people from EQR and EQC.


18: Linking Strategy to Implementation. EQC Customer Interaction Review. November 2014. The report is available on EQC's website: www.eqc.govt.nz.

19: This is an initiative intended to give homeowners more certainty about when repairs of their homes would begin.

20: EQC has advised us that this team has answered 3511 phone calls and received 2071 requests for documents to the end of September 2015.

21: The In the Know Hub is a place where people can go to ask questions about the residential repair and rebuild processes, including EQC's part of that process.

22: EQR told us that most of the issues raised with contract supervisors require them to raise the issue in turn with EQC. The extra time this takes can appear to customers as a lack of responsiveness by contract supervisors when this is not necessarily the case.