Lives in limbo: why locals welcome Parliamentary Inquiry into insurers' flood response

The couple did have flood insurance on their Pye Street home. They're still paying their premiums.

But their lives remain in limbo, they told Member for Calare Andrew Gee and Federal Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones when the MPs visited to promise a parliamentary inquiry into the insurance response to the 2022 flood disasters last week.

The Advocate covered that announcement in our last edition, now we share some of the experiences that led to it and that reveal the scope that needs to be covered: for those who couldn't get flood insurance or had to "opt out" due to the cost; and for people like the Smiths.

Brian and Lesley only purchased their home 18 months before the tragic flood event of November 2022.

As newcomers to Eugowra they asked about flood risk and were advised they could get a certificate from the council to say they were not in the flood zone.

Getting insurance wasn't a problem, but now they say they've only been offered the funds to repair the middle of their home - not the subfloor or the roof.

Eight months on, nothing has been done. They are grateful they have a government-provided pod to live in.

They point to a leaning pier at the corner of the house and explain their insurer has advised the home was compromised due to its age, rather than the force of the water that swept other homes and cars down the street that day.

"We are so disheartened," Mr Smith said.

"We've got a house we can't live in. All we need to do is get back into our home.

"We moved here to settle down and retire. We can't do that now, because of what is going on."

The Advocate has heard from one Eugowra resident after another that they had to "opt out" of flood insurance with premiums exceeding $20,000 a year.

Josh Baldock raised his two transportable homes above the one in 100-year flood level - yet both were swept off their piers and destroyed.

"We looked at flood cover and it was three times $20,000 - no way is that affordable, it's not even in the realm of possibility," he said.

Mr Baldock, who has a young family and works in Sydney, came to rural NSW with his wife looking for a place to invest for the future.

They found a wonderful community and the perfect property in Eugowra: it had one home on it and was subdivided so they could build two more homes in an area sorely in need of rentals.

Once the two transportable homes were up, they began renovating the original house.

He now works to pay the loans on top of his rent in Sydney, with no prospect of relief.

"It's a difficult pill to swallow," he acknowledged.

"There's no help because I didn't live here. Just me coming out on weekends to do what I can do."

And Mr Baldock has continued to come every weekend, beginning the renovations on the original house again and helping those around him however he can.

Lyn and Hugh Ellis's newly renovated home was gutted when water surged through with unthinkable force on November 14, 2022.

The couple only escaped by scrambling into their attic and had to be airlifted - through a hole in their roof - that day.

Mrs Ellis hopes her community will stand together for change in the insurance industry.

"They ruined lives. People are suffering," Mrs Ellis said.

"They wouldn't give us flood insurance and (our claim was denied) because the hydrologist report says it was flood, not due to a storm event, which I believe is debatable.

"There is this very rigid definition ... if (water) comes through the roof then it's storm, if it comes over land then it's flood.

"Nobody could have imagined that this this could have occurred, that that set of circumstances could have aligned at that one particular minute."

Not only that, the Ellises' insurer continued to draw their premiums after their contents claim was denied - even after they'd advised them most of the contents they were paying the premiums on had been destroyed.

"Without our friends and family we'd be sunk - and other people who've heard our story, they have been so generous with time and money really," she said.