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As Waters Recede, Loss Calculations Begin in Jakarta ID/Grace Dwitya Amianti, Gita Rossiana & Tito Summa Siahaan | January 21, 2013 A cleaning crew scrubs mud from the front of UOB Plaza on Jalan MH Thamrin in Central Jakarta. (JG Photo/Yudhi Sukma Wijaya) Companies and consumers have started to calculate damages and losses from the widespread floods that hit Jakarta last week, claiming at least 17 lives, displacing thousands from their homes and afflicting capital residents with water-borne illnesses. State-controlled lender Bank Negara Indonesia said it suffered Rp 6.4 billion ($665,000) in losses due to the floods as some of its operational facilities were damaged. It calculated losses from affected branches at Rp 5.3 billion and Rp 1.1 billion in damages at some of its automated teller machines. Tribuana Tunggadewi, corporate secretary of BNI, said that according to internal reports as of Friday, there were 47 bank outlets and 134 ATM units damaged by the floods. “The losses at outlets were due to damaged properties, including furniture that was trapped in the water. Meanwhile, for the broken ATMs, which held money in them, we have insured them and customers’ money remains safe,” she said. Another big lender, Bank Central Asia, said that on Friday it had to halt operations at 40 of its outlets due to the flooding. Inge Setiawati, corporate secretary at BCA, said the 40 branches disrupted by the floods included ones in Thamrin, Bendungan Hilir, Sabang, Kelapa Gading, Angke and Grogol Permai. However, he assured customers that all of the bank’s online services, such as Internet banking (klikBCA) and mobile banking (m-BCA), remained available. Inge did not disclose the lender’s estimated flood losses. Julian Noor, executive director of Indonesia General Insurance Association, said on Sunday that the estimated insurance claims of this year’s flooding might exceed the figure of around Rp 15 trillion for the Greater Jakarta area in 2007, when the last massive flood struck the nation’s capital. “This year, the flood is worst because it hit the Thamrin and Hotel Indonesia circle area. There is also prolonged flooding in Pluit,” he said, referring to a district in North Jakarta. Julian could not provide an immediate insurance claim report for the recent floods. “Maybe next week,” he said. In the multifinance sector, some said the floods had disrupted collections of loan payments for automotive ownership. Frengkie Natawijaya, the president director of CIMB Niaga Auto Finance (CNAF), said the company’s debt collectors had difficulties in collecting car payment installments from some customers who were requesting delayed payments. Frengkie said those customers were likely prioritizing repairs to flood-damaged cars, rather than paying the installment. “Many of their cars were submerged during the floods, so they opted to fix it first,” he said. Despite the floods, Frengkie was optimistic that CNAF’s nonperforming loans would not rise significantly from the current 0.7 percent of total loans disbursed. CNAF booked Rp 9 trillion in automotive loans last year. Meanwhile, general insurance companies began to see a wave of insurance claims from policy holders. Insurer Asuransi Adira Dinamika said that in the two-day period, from Thursday through Friday, it received 75 claims for cars alone. The insurer usually takes fewer than 25 claims in an average month. Adira’s customer center, which operates 24 hours a day, reported 602 calls from customers making claims. Ernita Sari, business support deputy division head at Adira, expected the numbers of claims to rise further as the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) announced that rain intensity would likely increase until February. Another car insurer, Asuransi Astra Buana, said it had provided flood emergency services to 70 customers since Thursday. The insurer has established 44 evacuation points for its customers’ cars. Reinsurer Asuransi Maipark Indonesia said the company was studying the possibility of offering a “flood insurance” product. The company’s president director, Frans Y Sahusilawane, said the company was making flood risk calculations and hoped to offer such a product to customers by the second half of this year. Maipark is a specialist reinsurer that deals with catastrophe risks in Indonesia. It has handled insurance for earthquake and tsunami damage but not floods. According to the National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB), the floods in Jakarta forced 18,000 people from their homes and caused flood-related illnesses to 8,000 residents. There have been at least 17 fatalities. BNPB said the flooding that took place since Tuesday covered a total of 41 square kilometers of land, approximately 8 percent of Jakarta’s total area. It affected a total of 74 urban wards in 31 subdistricts across Jakarta’s five municipalities, inundating more than 97,000 houses as well as some of the capital’s main roadways. BNPB spokesman Sutopo Purwo said the agency was still calculating the financial losses that had resulted from the floods. One organization that suffered last week was water operator PAM Lyonnaise Jaya. On Saturday, the private company known as Palyja said in a statement it had cut its clean water supply services to as many as 250,000 customers in Jakarta after it found that its reservoir was contaminated by unsanitary refuse as a result of the floods. Palyja said supply had been halted since Friday evening after it discovered that engine oil had contaminated its reservoir in Bekasi. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
