Former Rochester resident Rob Carnegie celebrates insurance payout

Rob Carnegie, whose plight the Advertiser reported on back in May, found that persistence paid off last week when his insurance company, Shannons, paid him out for the home contents and caravan that he lost.

The young father, who has been couch surfing with family in Melbourne for months, separated from his kids by a two and a half hour drive, was experiencing "a flood of emotions" last Thursday.

"I'm absolutely rapt," he said. "It's so much relief."

"Yesterday they rang me and this morning it came through.

"Once I saw the money in the account I thought, 'This is real, this is awesome!'"

The payment puts an end to around nine months of limbo during which the flood victim had "nowhere to go and no money to help buy anything back".

Trouble began for Mr Carnegie around September last year, when having lost his rental house in Bawawm, which the owners wanted to renovate, he moved into his friend Allissa Grant's public housing property in Rochester.

Although he had had home contents insurance for several years and told the company he was relocating, he was advised by a company agent that he wouldn't be covered due to the danger of Rochester flooding.

With no other real options and convinced by locals that any flooding wouldn't be too serious, Mr Carnegie went ahead with the move, taking all his belongings.

When the floods came, he and his son and daughter, who were staying with him at the time, were evacuated to Bendigo with little more than the clothes they were wearing, and spent a month at the evacuation centre.

At the showgrounds he was helped to access initial Centrelink and Victorian government emergency payments but when he applied for the post-flood re-establishment grant that others in the area had quickly qualified for, the recently relocated Rochester resident encountered a major stumbling block.

For months Mr Carnegie chased proof of residence documents and talked to Department of Families, Fairness and Housing staff and a "flood support worker" about his application for the assistance, which could have been worth up to $30,000.

"I've been on the phone back and forth, back and forth, back and forth with them," he said as recently as a fortnight ago.

"I think I've given them every single bit of information that I possibly could.

"The anxiety of it all. I wish I could just know the answer."

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But while the department prevaricated about paying for him to replace his lost property Mr Carnegie, in trying to prove that his friend's house in Rochester had been his primary address, got back in touch with Shannons and discovered that his policies could still be valid.

The payment of around $45,000 for his caravan and possessions - including tools he uses to restore cars -will enable him to move back to the region, rent his own place and "start to feel normal again".

His kids were thrilled with the news, he said. So was his mum, although she wanted him to stay on with her in the city.

But he is keen to return from Melbourne as soon as he hears "everything's settled down with the weather".

"It's too hectic, this city life. It's a nightmare," he said.

Mostly he is looking forward to "not being in limbo on the phone all the time trying to figure out what to do".

"I'll always make sure I've got insurance from now on. Never mind the government," he said.

"Now I can do my own thing and start living life again."

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