Woman in nine-year battle with insurer as failed roof repairs cause mould

Lily bought her home in the early 1970s. (ABC News: Adelaide Miller) Link copiedShareShare articleIt was just after 9am on a Sunday when Lily heard a bang outside her window. The 70-year-old grandmother, who has asked to share only her first name, recalls opening the front door of her Western Sydney home when she saw a truck caught in the street's powerlines. "I saw the electricity sparks … the fire brigade came and the police came, ambulance came [and] the road was blocked, I don't know, for 6, 8 hours," she says. The truck pulled on the powerlines to her house, dislodging the gutter, fascia and some roof tiles. It was cosmetic damage that could easily be fixed, but, it set off a nine-year ongoing battle with her insurance provider, GIO Suncorp, that forced Lily, who lives with a physical disability, out of her house. Lily's home of two decades is no longer fit to live in. (ABC News: Adelaide Miller) "I could never think that this is possible," she says. Lily had lived in her home for more than two decades before the battle with GIO began. Lily stands in front of her home she has owned for decades but is now unliveable. (ABC News: Adelaide Miller) "My home was safety, comfort and everything for me," she says. "I feel broken … I just want to sell the land and buy somewhere else because it's very painful for me." Lily's daughter, Lana, who has also asked to share only her first name, says GIO contractors attempted to fix the roof gutter, which started overflowing whenever it rained. "Unfortunately for us, on the back of that first truck impact claim that we were almost in the middle of resolving, we realised we've got mould at my mum's home and it's like severe black toxic mould," Lana says. Home insurance premiums continue to rise, with properties in natural disaster-prone areas paying the most. Lana contacted the insurer about the dislodged tiles, hoping to support her mum. However, GIO dismissed their concerns about mould. "Anything we say, they don't take seriously … we had water ingress leading to mould," she says. Mould grew throughout Lily's house before she was forced into a rental. (ABC News: Adelaide Miller) It wasn't until Lana contacted the Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA) that GIO agreed to assess the property, but on three separate occasions sent out an expert who failed to test and subsequently remediate the mould properly. "The hygienist that they used, their report was pretty vague and somehow they went from saying the scope was much larger to GIO only approving a much smaller portion of their scope," she says. Lana then organised her own independent hygienist reports, which the ABC has seen. It found the level of mould in each bedroom was "extremely high" and was caused by a water leak in the roof. "[GIO] wanted to sand and paint over severe mould over the ceiling to half the home," she says. "That's how they wanted to repair something that they knew or should have known was actually a pretty severe situation." Lana says GIO wanted to paint over the mould in her mother's home. (Supplied: Lana) The independent hygienist recommended parts of the structure of the home should be removed and remediated. But nearly three years after the report was made, the damage still has not been fixed. In April last year, Lily moved into a rental as GIO contractors finally attempted to remediate her property. Then, last December, an independent report stated the remediation attempt had failed and the house was no longer safe to live in. Lily says GIO offered her a cash settlement, details of which she is not allowed to discuss. However, she says the money was not adequate compensation, so she knocked back the offer. The pensioner now lives in a rental that is too small for all her belongings, forcing her to pay a total of $1,000 in rent and storage fees a week. In December 2025, an independent report stated the house was no longer safe. (ABC News: Adelaide Miller) "The fact that any insurance company can hijack someone's life for nine years … and then when they're done with us, want to just throw money at us, but not even enough money for us to be able to put ourselves back into the same situation as what my mum was in before," Lana says. Every day, Lily walks to her home to feed her chickens. (ABC News: Adelaide Miller) In a statement to the ABC, a spokesperson for GIO Insurance said: "This is a complex matter, and we acknowledge how difficult this has been for [Lily] and her family." "We have continued to engage constructively with the customer to progress the claim, including by providing additional assistance, but have ultimately been unable to reach agreement to progress the claim. We have also made a settlement offer to resolve the claim we believe is fair and appropriate. In a statement, industry peak body the Insurance Council of Australia said: "Insurers must take extra care to support customers experiencing vulnerability, including where a person

Woman in nine-year battle with insurer as failed roof repairs cause mould

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