Like many Australians, Joe couldn’t afford to take out flood insurance. Now he’s paying the price

A month ago, after renting for years, Joe Wilkinson bought his dream home at North Haven on the New South Wales mid-north coast. It’s now been ruined by floodwater.

“We borrowed some money from parents and in-laws to get a deposit together and it was just about manageable, the price they were asking, without breaking the bank — and we finally settled a month and a half ago,” he told 7.30.

“There’s a lot of old fixtures in here and they absorbed a lot of water and just disintegrated in a couple of days.”