State Government Clean-up Program

If your home is insured, contact your insurance company even if you don't know the full extent of the damage. Take photos and make a list of everything that is damaged.

If you don’t have your policy, you can request it from your insurance provider. 

If you don’t know your insurer, call the Insurance Council of Australia at 1800 734 621 to see if they can help you.

If you haven’t accepted an insurance payout, you are encouraged to seek clean-up through your insurer. 

It's wise to get advice before accepting a settlement offer.

You can talk to a financial counsellor via the National Debt Helpline at 1800 007 007 or contact the Financial Rights Legal Centre or Disaster Legal Help or contact Arc Justice for advice before accepting a settlement offer.

ERV does not oversee resident discussions with insurers.

When you register, the team will ask you some questions to see if you’re eligible. Sometimes, eligibility confirmation can take time. This is due to collecting and assessing documents like a copy of your insurance policy, to check if someone is underinsured or meets business criteria. 

For a home to be eligible, it must be a property you own and where you usually live - your primary place of residence. Structures like sheds might also be eligible. 

Site inspections are scheduled once eligibility is confirmed.

There are other clean-up services available. This includes information on grants for primary producers and free waste disposal. You can find information on help for your clean-up at https://www.vic.gov.au/clean-and-waste  

Once eligibility is confirmed, ERV/Forge Solutions will book the site assessment with you. After the assessment, you will receive a work pack. 

The work pack includes details about: 

• the work that can be done 
• what you need to do to proceed.

Once the Site Assessment has been completed and you have received the Work Plan you can then choose if you want to go ahead with the clean-up or not. There are several reasons that may lead residents to delay or not proceed with works or take time to decide to go ahead. This timeline is up to you as it can be a big decision. 

The clean-up process does not offer partial demolition nor guarantee that foundations can be retained. Services will need to be disconnected and a work zone established.

During this time, you should also think about any permits you might need for rebuilding - you can call Council's Planning and Building Units on 5772 0333 to discuss this further. 

If you opt in for the clean-up, the site supervisor will contact you to arrange a site walk-through to explain the works.

• You’ll need to leave while the work is being done.
• Your site supervisor will tell you about what is happening and any changes.
•  If new work is needed that wasn’t in the original scope of works, the contractor will talk to you about it.

• After it's done, the contractor will meet you on site to talk through what they did.
• We’ll then send you a record of this work in a Completion pack.
• Then, you can focus on your next steps, whatever is right for you.