She said her house, east of Centennial Ave, has never been the subject of flooding.
But when her latest insurance premium came from Tower Insurance she said there was a $200 extra on the bill because she lived in a flood-prone area.
"I said that was absolute rubbish. We’re 35m above the river. It’s never flooded here. I know Alexandra had a flood in 1999, but nowhere near where we live," she said.
Insurance companies and their coverage of houses had come under the spotlight over the last couple of weeks. AA Insurance was no longer offering cover for Westport, small towns outside Christchurch and Blenheim while a Taieri couple said last week Tower had declined to insure their house because of flooding issues.
She said she too was very much surprised when her latest house premiums arrived and it had increased by so much.
She said they had no reason to carry out flood mitigation as it did not flood in their area.
To her the additional $200 was just revenue gathering.
Tower Insurance had doubled the flood portion of my premium to $431 for the current year as per their advice this week when contacted by Tower, she said.
Nowhere on the renewal account nor on the certificate of insurance policy was this mentioned.
"If Tower are so sure of their probabilistic flood model risks, why would they not make clients aware of any additional fee components to their policies?"
She questioned who came up with their risk assessment.
"Someone over in Germany I understood does it, which is just ridiculous. None of my neighbours, who aren’t with Tower, have $200 added to their premiums."
Otago Regional Council natural hazards manager Jean-Luc Payan said based on the best available data, the woman's house was not located within the 1-in-100-year floodplain, which is the most commonly used benchmark for flood planning.
He said while New Zealand does not have a single national standard for flood mapping, the government was developing a national standard.
"This work will support a consistent flood modelling approach nationwide," he said.
Tower Insurance chief underwriting officer Ron Mudaliar said Tower was the first New Zealand insurer to launch a tool that gives customers an individual rating for their risk of inland flooding and earthquakes and last year it added sea surge and landslide risk ratings.
"Ultimately, our risk-based pricing approach aims to remove cross-subsidisation so that customers only pay for the risks their homes face, not anyone else’s."
It also enables the company to continue to insure homes, and offer insurance, across the country, to lower risk properties within high-risk areas.
For flood risk ratings and associated premiums, Tower used the Moody’s New Zealand Inland Flood HD model. The model was the first fully probabilistic flood model for the country and was built with data obtained from organisations such as Earth Sciences NZ, Land Information NZ and local and regional councils, he said.
The model used Moody’s analysis based on 50,000 years of continuous simulation of the entire precipitation cycle and all sources of inland flood — pluvial and fluvial — resulting in a catalogue of 350,000 simulated events.
"For some of our customers with lower risks, premiums have been decreasing in parts of New Zealand, including in Alexandra, as inflation and other factors that influence premiums began to settle last year," Mr Mudaliar said.
"Our risk-based pricing approach means premiums reflect individual risks and customers with higher risks are likely seeing premium increases."
While the company could not comment on specifics due to privacy, it had offered the woman a full review.
He said there were things Tower could do to reduce premiums, so people should get in touch to discuss their insurance.
