Put at $500m a year ago, the total sum put aside to cover the shortfall between AMI's Christchurch quake claims was reduced to $355m in last October's Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Update (Prefu) but was now likely to be $148m, today's Budget documents reveal.
However, the bill for red zone payouts to the owners of homes on land too damaged for rebuilding has gone up.
Put at a total of $867m in the Prefu, the Budget now pushes that to just over $1 billion.
That figure is net of the money central government gets back from the Earthquake Commission and private insurers.
Once again, the forecasts for when the biggest chunk of the $55b Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Fund will be spent have been pushed back.
Last year the Government expected the 2010/2011 year would see the most expenditure at $2.8b. But the actual spending over that year and 2011/2012 combined will be less than that. Spending only reaches its peak with $2.17b in 2013.
Earthquake Recovery Minister Gerry Brownlee said new spending within the $5.5b recovery fund included $95m over the next two years on Red Zone security and maintenance and an additional $30m over the next four years for the Christchurch Central Development Unit which will manage the rebuilding of the city's central business district.
