Auckland man goes without shower at home for months after Tower Insurance faff

An Auckland man and his two teenage children haven’t had a shower at home for over four months since the Auckland Anniversary weekend floods, despite the man making a claim to his insurance company. Photo /123RF

An Auckland man and his two teenage children haven’t had a shower at home for over four months since the Auckland Anniversary weekend floods, despite making a claim to his insurance company.

In the meantime, Phil Borough and his family have been taking showers at his in-laws’ place and his friend’s house.

“My wife’s a flight attendant, so she’s always away and gets to shower in hotels in the various different countries she’s in,” Borough said.

Borough said his insurance company, Tower Insurance, had been “pretty unresponsive”, “pretty slow” and “seemed to pass the buck” on the work needing to be done.

He lodged a claim immediately after water “seeped through everything”, damaging the bathroom in his Arch Hill home on January 27.

“They said they’d be there Easter Thursday. They pulled everything out, including the toilet, and then left,” Borough said.

“Two weeks later, they reinstalled the loo. The plumber was super-nice and put everything he could back.

“When I tell people we don’t have a shower, they laugh - it’s annoying. I know there are people in way worse predicaments, so I remember that as a way of making this a bit better.”

Borough told the Herald he typically drove his children and dropped them off so they could shower. He considered joining a gym so he could shower, but figured it “too annoying”.

He said Tower was “generally useless with the house [insurance] side [of operations], and the contents side is really good”.

“It all comes down to Tower not communicating with anyone top-down. We keep getting sent on to Gallagher Bassett [a third-party claims administrator].”

“Ultimately, we need to hear from Tower. They did the assessment two weeks [after the claim] to work out the cost of damage and they said they’d have it all done in a week.”

Since the repairs hadn’t been completed, Borough also said there were holes along the wall of the house making it draughty during this cold, wet winter.

“We got some plastic sheeting and stapled that over the holes but it’s useless. The whole house is open,” he said.

“The problem is, we’ve got two dogs. We couldn’t go to another house.”

Following a call to Tower Insurance from the Herald last night, Borough said the insurance company had since phoned him and sent him a quote.

“You must have freaked them out. I’ll see what happens next,” he said.

Tower chief claims officer Steve Wilson told the Herald he couldn’t discuss details about Borough’s claim due to privacy.

“However, we can confirm that we have spoken to our customer today and are working with them to resolve their claim as quickly as possible.

Wilson thanked the Herald “for alerting us to this customer’s situation”.

He acknowledged Tower had “not met the high standards our customers should expect from us”.

“We know experiencing damage from a natural disaster is stressful. We are striving to settle claims as quickly and efficiently as possible. Additionally, our teams have put extra processes in place to improve our communications between customers and key suppliers.”

Raphael Franks is an Auckland-based reporter who covers breaking news. He joined the Herald as a Te Rito cadet in 2022.