Insurance Woe Nails Builder
Newcastle Herald
Monday June 4, 2001
ELERMORE Vale builder Steve Thomas is out of work from today because of the HIH insurance company collapse.
His inability to continue until he gets alternative cover will affect the carpentry, bricklaying, plumbing, electrical, roof and floor tiling crews to whom he sub-contracts work.
That makes 15 other families.
Mr Thomas, like others who build, extend or renovate homes, must carry insurance to protect owners against faulty workmanship and the collapse of building firms. Councils will not approve plans and allow work to begin unless builders prove they are insured.
Mr Thomas expects to wait up to four weeks before one of the two insurance companies remaining in the home owners' protection scheme approves his reinsurance application.
He had been able to continue working for the past 10 weeks, since HIH collapsed, because he had just renewed his insurance on four home extensionprojects.
The last of that work finished on Friday.
`I'm very disappointed, to say the least, because if I'm not driving nails into wood I can't survive,' Mr Thomas said.
`I'm just a self-employed small fry in this whole affair.
`But if I'm not doing anything, all those sub-contractors have lost part of their income too.
`I don't think it's fair thatso many little people should bear the brunt of a big corporate collapse.'
Mr Thomas said the Federal Government should never have privatised the homes owners' insurance scheme.
`If the Government couldn't make money with it, how could private enterprise?' he asked.
`The HIH chiefs should be held accountable.
`If I did something wrong I'd be responsible and have to pay for it.'
Mr Thomas says he will continue to quote for work, tidy up papers on his desk and hope that it doesn't take long to gain insurance approval.
© 2001 Newcastle Herald
