Cyclone insurance claims hit $86.18m

A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.

The final financial damages wrought on Gisborne properties by Cyclone Gabrielle here has been tallied and will cost insurance companies a whopping $86.18 million in payouts.

Figures released by the Insurance Council of New Zealand yesterday estimated insurers nationwide have so far paid out $2.053 billion. This is an updated estimate of the cost of general insurance claims for the twin climate disasters of the Auckland Anniversary Weekend floods and Cyclone Gabrielle, of $3.5bn across 112,812 claims.

“Good progress continues to be made on settling claims, especially when compared to prior large-scale disasters, said Insurance Council of New Zealand Te Kāhui Inihua o Aotearoa (ICNZ) chief executive, Tim Grafton. “But there is much more to be done and insurers will stand by customers until the last claim is settled.”

A breakdown of the claims for Tairāwhiti up to September 1, shows 2602 insurance claims were made here following the cyclone.

The majority of those (940) were house insurance claims amounting to $47.19m.

Business claims made up the next biggest sector with 683 claims amounting to $11.19m.

There were also 564 contents claims worth $11.8m, 372 motor insurance claims amounting to $4.2m. Four marine claims and 39 “other” claims worth a combined $800,000 accounted for the remainder of the total insurance claim cost of $86.18m.

The damage was even worse for Hawke’s Bay, which amassed 18,526 claims worth $1.065 billion.

In addition to the Auckland Anniversary Weekend floods and Cyclone Gabrielle events, extreme weather in the North Island between 21 and 28 February (2801 claims, $20,780,996) and again over 9-10 May (3822 claims, $41,399,639) bring the total for climate-related claims in 2023 to 119,435, worth around $3.563 bn.