Flood insurance claims top 20,000

Thursday, 2 February 2023

Households in Shackleton Road, Mount Eden clear their houses of flood-damaged belongings.

Insurer Tower has begun settling 500 claims for damage to cars in the Auckland and North Island floods.

But that is just a fraction of the mounting claims numbers published by house, contents and car insurers.

Tower chief claims officer Steve Wilson said the insurer had so far settled 11 claims, but 200 vehicles were being assessed, or were on their way to a south Auckland car yard to be assessed.

The car claims were just over a quarter of all the flood claims so far logged by Tower, with 1900 claims in all, 1000 of which were claims for damage to houses.

* Insurance premium worry: flood may see NZ's biggest insurer blow its budget for 'natural perils'

The council has already red stickering 175 homes in Auckland after the flooding.

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AA Insurance has had close to 4500 claims, about 2100 of which were house claims, 1000 contents and 1350 vehicle claims.

Tower Manager Motor Assessing Richard Housham assessing a flood-damaged vehicle at the Tower triage and assessment yard in Wiri, South Auckland, operated by Turners.

IAG, which owns the State, AMI and NZI brands, has so far had 14,000 claims, and the number continues to climb.

Wilson said that starting on Saturday morning, a fleet of tow trucks had been transporting customers’ flood damaged vehicles from around Auckland to one central yard in Wiri.

“Tower motor assessors are stationed at the yard triaging vehicles,” Wilson said.

Many flood-damaged cars will be written off.

“During a flood, once water reaches above a certain level, it’s often not viable to repair the vehicle’s electrical system,” Wilson said.

“This means a large part of assessing involves performing checks to verify the extent of flood damage, which enables assessors to make a call very quickly on the state of the vehicle.

“If flood waters only reached a low level in your vehicle, open all the windows in a secure place to allow the vehicle to dry out. Fans and dehumidifiers will also help.”

People with cars that were flooded should not drive their cars prior to their insurers’ inspecting them, he said.

Tower assessors were visiting people with damage to homes.

“We’ve been bringing in more assessors from around the country and Australia to help reach customers faster,” Wilson said.

“These assessors have been on the ground since early Saturday morning,” he said.