Residents forced into temporary accommodation have told a parliamentary inquiry of ongoing battles with insurance companies.Flood victims say insurers are bullying them into accepting "lowball" payouts while their homes remain unliveable seven months on from record flooding in Far North Queensland.
Ms Easton gave evidence to the federal parliamentary economics committee's inquiry into insurers' responses to major flooding, which sat in Cairns this week. "You do have rights. Just because your insurance company tells you one thing, it doesn't mean that you have to agree with that."Mossman resident Danielle Morache said she had spent five hours a week managing her own insurance claim and that of an elderly neighbour after the flooding.
Ms Morache told the parliamentary committee she wanted insurers to be held more accountable and to treat claimants better."I have had multiple fights with them that I've won.""It's highly inappropriate for customers to be dealt with in that way, where the onus is put on them to prove that something happened, where an insurance company might try to put pressure on a client to accept a lowball offer," he said.