Tonight... I'm sitting there, going, 'What?!' Traffic tickets, speed camera fines ` what should you own up to? I challenge anyone to go back five years and work out whether they've had one speeding ticket or two speeding tickets. How can you treat people like this, in Christchurch, after the earthquakes, when we've gone through so much? He's a ghostbuster... Anton Heyrick, from Independent Roof Coatings. ...with some very down-to-earth questions to answer. Gidday, Anton. It's Garth from Fair Go. And... To save a bit of money on the electricity bill would be fantastic. ...we challenge two families to slash their winter power bills. Every night she's gonna be banging on the door, 'Get out!' Copyright Able 2014 Welcome to Fair Go. You're driving home. Your mind's drifting. So's the speedo. Suddenly, white flash ` speed camera. Nabbed. So you pay the fine, tell yourself off, say 'never again'. Is that it? Well, not as far as your insurance company's concerned. Here's Hannah. SIRENS WAIL This is the sort of driving that would give your insurance company second thoughts. But Des Ross reckons his insurer's got nothing to fear. I would consider myself just a moderate, everyday driver. Never forgets his seat belt, lights on in the daytime, indicates even when there's no one behind him. I'm a family man. I've got two kids. I mean, I'm not going to run down the road at 160km/h. When's the last time you got a speeding ticket? > When's the last time you got a speeding ticket? > I can honestly say I can't remember. And trying to honestly say is what Des is struggling with. His insurer, IAG, has sent him a list of things he has to tell them ` some pretty easy; some, like the last five years' worth of traffic tickets... I challenge anyone to go back five years and work out whether they've had one speeding ticket or two speeding tickets. And if you don't tell them, then try and claim after an accident, the company warns it may affect the outcome of any claim, or result in the cancellation of the insurance. If you get one speeding ticket and it's cost you $50 to resolve that ticket, does that justify them saying to you that, if you have claim on a $10,000 or $15,000 car, that we're going to say to you, 'No, we're not going to accept that claim.' And you must disclose offences for all the insured drivers. What happens if my son drives my car, gets a speeding ticket, comes home, doesn't tell Dad, pays the fine, and I have accident the next week in the car? They can come along and say, 'Well, your vehicle was involved in a speeding ticket on this date.' And I'm sitting there going, 'What?!' But this isn't just about Des' car, his driving and his insurance. Check out your own policy. I've had a good look at mine, and, yes, my insurer wants me to tell them about any fines I've got, who's driving my car, that sort of thing. Disclosure is pretty much an industry-wide requirement. In every insurance policy, there's what's called a duty of utmost good faith. You, as the insured person, have to disclose to the insurance company any matter that might materially affect their insurance policy. But that's the clause ` 'Matter that might materially affect their insurance policy.' Not just any matter. What does that mean? It means your traffic offences have to be serious enough or frequent enough to make you, or your son or daughter driving your car, more of an insurance risk. They can't necessarily get out of a claim just based on the fact you didn't disclose material. There's a provision in the Insurance Law Reform Act ` section 11, 1977 ` that says, if there's a provision in the policy that they seek to rely on to avoid liability, and you can show that it's irrelevant, then they can't avoid liability. I feel the insurance companies are really putting more pressure on their customers to divulge every possible thing they can think of. It's just got out of hand. Here's something else Des' insurers want to know ` any and all criminal convictions, going back seven years. I think it's crazy. If you have a minor criminal conviction, unrelated to vehicles, why do you need to disclose that to your insurance company? Is your insurance company entitled to know all offences by all drivers of the insured vehicle? Absolutely not. In fact, it would be a breach of fundamental privacy principles. They're only entitled to know of convictions relevant to the policy of insurance. You can have matters totally unrelated to anything to do with vehicles or insurance ` none of their business. But be very careful when you're deciding what to tell your insurance company about convictions held by you or someone else driving the car. What you might think of as none of their business can be very relevant to your insurance company. Convictions, for instance, for dishonesty, theft or arson do affect the level of risk taken by the insurers. The Insurance Council says such crimes point to a lack of respect for the law. Insurance companies also want to know about all vehicle modifications. Des says that's not always easy. If you purchase a car, how are you to know that the original tyre size on the car was different from what's on there now? You're only obligated to tell them matters that you are aware of ` things you should reasonably be aware of. You, being the driver of the vehicle, should know if it has obvious, invisible modifications. But you can't be held liable for things you aren't aware of. Which is helpful for all those who try and stay on the right side of the law and the right side of their insurance company. So, if you think something might affect your insurance cover, disclose. I think what's happening now is the insurance companies are trying to bring it more to the fore. Why's that? Well, a malevolent interpretation might be that would then enable them to avoid payment on a policy. A more benevolent interpretation would be they're trying to make sure we're all aware of our obligations. So if you do have to disclose any stuff to your insurer, put it in writing, and our traffic lawyer Steve Cullen suggests adding the line, 'This information is true and correct 'to the best of my knowledge as at...' and put the date. That should cover you for stuff you don't know or don't remember. And to get a list of your previous traffic offences, you'll find this Infringement History Request form on the NZ Police website. Des Ross, though, isn't quite finished with questions for his insurance company. My insurance company is telling me that disclosure is a two-way street, and I think that's great. What I would like to know is how many claims have been rejected because of non-disclosure and the reasons why. Good question, Des. The Insurance Council responded, 'We don't keep that data, Des.' IAG say only a very small number of claims are declined ` about a quarter of those for non-disclosure. A couple of examples ` not disclosing obvious and significant car modifications could affect both your cover and any accident claim. Undisclosed, minor speed fines might be OK, but serious speeding traffic offences or regular offending need to be disclosed and could result in increased excess or even having your insurance declined. And, we just cannot stress often enough, you must disclose relevant stuff to your insurer. Mm. After the break ` Please, don't ever do it to anybody else. he looks for ghosts,... Anton Heyrick, from Independent Roof Coatings. ...but he's got some very down-to-earth questions to answer. Gidday, Anton. It's Garth from Fair Go. And, later,... That heat pump v light bulb thing, that was quite a biggie. ...you'll be amazed at how much our two families can save. 900, just by reducing the flow in the shower? Absolutely. Willard Wigan actually slows his heart and sculpts between beats to create these tiny treasures. At first glance, the world of finance looks large and complex, but in the right hands it can be distilled into something simple and understandable. Seemingly big problems become so much smaller. ANZ has the expertise to help make the complicated simple. Huh. Welcome back. Chasing a ghost ` that's what the people in this story feel like they've been doing for many months. He's a roofer; he's also a paranormal investigator on the side, tracing ghostly apparitions. His angry customers report very few sightings of him after he's taken their money. Here's Garth. This is Anton Heyrick ` 21st-century ghostbuster. Breaking through a stagnant field. He created Christchurch Paranormal Investigations to make videos and explore the possibilities of supernatural occurrences in a city shaken, shattered and now rebuilding. Anton Heyrick has garnered plenty of attention since the quake. Even TV2's 20/20 programme spent the night with him and his teammates on a spooky stake-out a few years ago. By day he's a roofer ` though there is something strange, and it don't look good. Guess who we're gonna call. You might not think of Christchurch District Court as haunted, but plenty come here seeking a phantom. There's nothing paranormal about it. They're simply hoping they can summon up Anton Heyrick so they can ask him for their money back. Lee Osborn is here with an order to examine Anton Heyrick's finances and to try to set up repayment of the $2000 he owes her. He didn't show. What would you like to say to him if you could? Just, uh, how can you treat people like this, in Christchurch, after the earthquakes, when we've gone through so much? And why add to our stress? Of course Lee Osborn was stressed. Her home here on the Avon estuary had been red-zoned. She needed to move out urgently, and she could, into a new place ` as soon as Anton Heyrick did the work that he'd been paid for. That was in March last year, when she paid him to waterproof her roof. She's never seen him again. Three months of excuses and more than a year of court dates have produced no trace of Anton Heyrick or her money. If you can't do the work or aren't prepared to do the work, then you don't deserve to have our money, and we deserve to have it back. And, please, don't ever do it to anybody else. Lee found out she's not alone. Others have orders from the Disputes Tribunal for the money they're owed. Did you get the email about him being afraid to go on roofs since the earthquakes? No. No. As a roofer? No. As a roofer? So we've had everything. There were yet more delays when he spent time in Ashburton renovating a rental property held in trust by his partner's family. He then proudly sent photos to a customer who'd been asking repeatedly why he wasn't fixing their roof. As the excuses mounted up, these people lost all faith with Anton Heyrick. They just wanted their money back. Hello? When we finally caught up,... Gidday, Anton. It's Garth from Fair Go. ...he says there was one thing behind all of that. I had a breakdown. It became incredibly difficult, and I didn't deal with that well and made a lot of excuses. That long list of excuses got under people's skin. One couple grew so frustrated, the husband went to the roofer's home, demanding he pay what the Disputes Tribunal ordered ` in pretty coarse language. Anton Heyrick says he found that intimidating. In any case, it didn't result in a refund. What I love about my job the most is the start to finish ` arriving, having a roof that looks terrible, the house looks terrible, doing what I do, and walking away from it, when you leave, it looks great. This is from a video shot for Anton Heyrick by Yellow when it made him one of the faces of its marketing efforts ` part of the Christchurch rebuild digital toolkit. Our website has been live for four weeks, and the leads have just been coming in. That convinced Julie. They've chosen this guy. He's obviously a reputable business. You'd think you'd want a reputable business to advertise your thing. So the Yellow Pages thing was huge for us, yeah. Julie tried to post negative but factual feedback. Yellow says it disabled the ability to leave comments on the listing, at Anton Heyrick's request. Been quite amazed there's no way of taking him down, for want of a better word, and stopping him just getting more people. All of these cases arose early last year. Was it a bad patch for Anton? Perhaps. Then again, there's this job he took on just before Christmas. Basically he's just left us with a hell of a mess. Anton Heyrick did some painting. Mark Kershaw just wishes now that he hadn't. Since he's been waterblasting on the roof, it's definitely shifted up the top, and we're having leaking in the bedrooms. Basically we're out of pocket to the tune of $4600. And, um, basically the main house has had one coat applied, and the garage has had nothing. Anton called that money his holiday cash. When the flaws in his work became apparent, he offered more excuses ` a summer break, extended to help his partner's recently-injured father with the boat and bach. He still hasn't been back, and now it's too late there. The guy's a monkey. I mean, the job's useless. I wouldn't want him near the roof at all. Mark and his wife just want their money back so they can hire a roofbuster, not a ghostbuster, to do it right. Who you gonna call? Who you gonna call? (LAUGHS) Not Anton, anyway. And let's get going. Anton's paranormal sideline seemed to be humming along through all these difficulties. This is from a video put on the internet last September. Sophisticated gear. His business, Independent Roof Coatings, is a sponsor of the non-profit organisation and a project absorbing time and effort. With eight vanloads of rubble removed, our medics kit empty and a stark, scary realisation that this was gonna take our all. We've got a lot of work to do. We've gotta gain sponsorship, and we've gotta get the team organised and get this thing built. Hello? But what about the day job? Anton offered to show us he still had the paint from the jobs he hadn't done. You gonna give the people their money back? You gonna give the people their money back? Absolutely. When? When? As soon as possible. You know, people make mistakes, and I need to fix that. And I admit that I made some mistakes. What are you doing to fix those mistakes? What are you doing to fix those mistakes? Well, obviously I'm back working. And the most important thing is to pay these people back as quickly as possible. Anton says he fell off a roof on that fateful day of the big quake in February 2011. I had my accident after the Canterbury earthquake, obviously, and had quite a significant mental breakdown. A delayed reaction that only surfaced in 2013. Unfortunately` Unfortunately` < This was two years afterwards, though. Yeah, that's post... post-traumatic stress, all right? You know, like many people suffered. Lee Osborn suffered. She suffered because she was waiting for you to fix her house up. Her house had been red-zoned. She needed to move out. You didn't do the work. She suffered. And I apologise. And I apologise. And you` Well, have you been to see her? Have you been to apologise? Did you turn up in court to apologise? Did you turn up in court to apologise? I didn't realise there was court. I would have gone. I've got all the proof in the world upstairs that backs up everything I've been going through, all right? I had a hell of a time. We accepted Anton's offer to come in, without the camera, and see for ourselves, and his offer promptly vanished. I do apologise, OK? I have offered and want to complete all the work for these people, but that's not the case, so now it's about paying them back. So that's what I'm going to do. That's all I've got to say now. Anton Heyrick insists he never set out to take money without doing the work. He's now been back to court, promising to make a hardship withdrawal from a Kiwisaver account to pay back Lee Osborn next month. He'd also started repaying one of his former customers $25 a week around the time we contacted that customer. His family are now working with him to try to design a payment plan for all of Anton's debts. They've also been in touch with Mark Kershaw ` he's the one with the unpainted garage roof ` to see if they can put his roof right. So far, none of that is settled. But we're hoping we'll be able to report some good news soon. And remember, he appeared in the promotional videos on the Yellow YouTube account. Yellow say they've taken the videos down and they've changed the feedback system so they do learn of any negative feedback on those videos. After the break ` What are you best to spend your money on, that's going to get you the greatest gains? can you match the huge power savings our two families are going to make this winter? That could add up to $1500, roughly. BOTH LAUGH Oh, wow. That would be great, because our power bill's pretty high at the moment. Oh, wow. That would be great, because our power bill's pretty high at the moment. Welcome back. Want to save money on your winter power bill? Two families certainly will be ` we're paying one of those winter bills for them. In return, though, they are letting us into their homes to find out what they and you can do to cut your bill. Girls, look who's here. Girls, look who's here. Daddy! Hi, Daddy! High school teacher James Wakelin is greeted with rather more glee than the monthly power bill. Daddy! The Wakelins' winter bills peak around the $300 mark. We're on one income. I'm at home full-time with the girls. So... to save a bit of money on the electricity bill would be fantastic. But, you know, trying to help the environment a bit as well would be great. They're in a '60s weatherboard place with extensions front and rear. The new living area is toasty warm. Thanks, Mum. Thanks, Mum. You're welcome. But Phoebe and Rebecca's rooms are in the old and cold and harder-to-heat bits. We've invited Christian, from EECA, the energy efficiency people, to check out what the Wakelins can do to lower their power bills. Hello. I'm Christian, from EECA. Hello. I'm Christian, from EECA. Nice to meet you. I'm Dee. Firstly, he does a shower flow test. I filled the bucket for a minute, and the bucket wasn't full yet. So that's good, is it? So that's good, is it? That's a good thing, because you want to make sure that a 10 litre bucket fills` takes longer than a minute to fill. So it's about 9 litres per minute, that shower here, which is spot on. Not so good upstairs in the ceiling. In the old part of the house, the insulation is old and thin. These downlights turn out to be the biggest problem ` 20 in all. Did you know that this heat pump, when it's running, uses about the same amount of electricity as the lights when you have them on? Seriously? It's quite a lot. That heat pump v light bulb thing, that was quite a biggie. I didn't realise how much these downlights use. Even the energy-efficient bulbs are costing extra money. That seems like a good idea, but unfortunately they don't really like getting hot, and in those downlight fittings, they get hot quite easily. And that's why they blow a lot more? And that's why they blow a lot more? Exactly. Replacing them with ones like this will cost about 100 bucks each. In those high-use areas, they can save you $20 a year in running costs. I'm still kind of dubious about spending the money on replacing the light fittings. But it seems sensible to think... replace the ones that are high-use. I had a look at your ceiling insulation, and I saw that there's not a lot. There's some old, blown insulation in there that's very thin. Put a really thick layer on top of it. I might consider doing it in the older part of the house, where the insulation isn't so great and it doesn't get all-day sun. And install some under-floor insulation. That's gonna make a big difference to the comfort in your house. But here's something cheap and easy. A vicious draught blows down the old, unused chimney. Just take an old plastic bag, stuff it with some shredded newspaper or some old clothes or something, and just stuff that up the chimney a little bit to block the draughts. But not too far ` leave a bit hanging, so it's obvious if someone ever tries lighting a fire. So it comes down to an equation. What are you best to spend your money on, that's going to get you the greatest gains? Bang for your buck, I guess. So the Wakelins are weighing up whether to spend money on insulation and downlights. No dramatic result there. But a totally different story with the other family we're following. So, here's our second family, the Thorntons of Christchurch. They're in a 13-year-old house. Here's two of their three girls, plus Princess the cat. Dad Mark is a carpet-layer, and they've got some horrible power bills. Last winter, the worst was $460. You're always looking at saving money, and our power bills are exceptionally high. Does it hurt paying those bills? Um, yeah, with three kids and, uh, yeah, being a sole wage. Yeah, it does. First up, Christian checks out the ceiling insulation. Yeah, I'm just having a look at the insulation. Ideally the Thorntons should double what they've got, and... Needs quite a bit of tidying up. A whole chunk has moved here. So there's big gaps or whole pieces missing. And this is bad. You see, the insulation is touching the downlight on one side. Yeah, so that's not a heat-loss issue ` that's a fire safety issue. That's very much a fire safety issue. Next, he does the flow test again. And it turns out the showers here are the real problem. Christian, I'm betting that shower is way less efficient than the Wakelins'. Absolutely. It's about 18 litres per minute, so it uses about twice as much water. It looks like it'd be a great shower to be in, but it is costing them money. Absolutely. If they were able to halve their shower use, that's gonna be about $900 a year in savings that's possible. in savings that's possible. 900, just by reducing the flow in the shower? Absolutely. Christian's been checking out your shower, guys. I think he's got some very good news for you. For just $15 they can get one these ` a flow restrictor. And for the four showers you say you're using in your house every day, that adds up to about $900 a year. Wow. That is quite a lot. That is quite a lot. That is a lot, yeah. That is quite a lot. That is a lot, yeah. Half? Half is a lot. Definitely, on power bill. That is quite impressive for $15, really, isn't it? It's a huge saving. It's absolutely ridiculous. The Thorntons have got heat-saving curtains on the way. And their hot water is too hot ` 75 degrees. Christian recommends turning it down to 60. Which is just hot enough to kill off all bad bugs which could grow in the hot water. Touch this pipe. Yeah, she's pretty hot. That uninsulated pipe is wasting money too. So, what you can do is you can insulate it ` just that bit from here to where it disappears in the wall. That will reduce heat loss and save you money. Finally, Christian says put the hot water heating on night rate. Meaning that your hot water cylinder is only being heated during the night, when the price is really really low. Never heard of that. During the day it doesn't get heated, but you have the big tank of water sitting full of hot water. All those changes might make an astonishing difference. That could add up to $1500, roughly. BOTH LAUGH Oh, wow. That'd be great, cos our power bill's pretty high at the moment. When you start saying $100 a month, that makes a huge difference. That's not just 5 bucks in the back pocket. But are you prepared to have shorter showers? That's` (LAUGHS) I'm not gonna hear the end of this. The... Every night she's gonna be banging on the door, 'Get out!' Every night she's gonna be banging on the door, 'Get out!' Oh yeah, Nah, I'm gonna be putting a timer on. 'Get out!' BOTH LAUGH Well worth it to save the money. Now, we bought this today. 8 bucks from a plumbing outfit. It's a shower flow restrictor. Now, I'm getting one of these, Pippa. I did my shower test last night. I failed Christian's 9 litres a minute test. Yeah, I'm checking tonight. Now, Genesis is having a look at whether the Thorntons would be better off putting their water heating on the night rate. Genesis says there is a chance they would run out of hot water at some point during the day. Next time we visit, we'll be helping both families figure out if they can get a cheaper deal from their supplier or any other company. So, that's the show. But we will be on Facebook for the next half-hour to answer your questions. Of course, our programme is all about your problems, your thoughts, so do get in touch. No problem too small, we always say. We really want to hear from you. We're on Facebook. Or email us. Write to us. And next week ` Ask a stupid question... are there right ways and wrong ways to behave in the supermarket aisles? I don't want six bananas. I just want three. That's next week. OK? Not OK? OK? Not OK? Not OK. Goodnight.