Like so many Kiwi grandparents, Barry and Susie Watkin of Devonport flew to Australia to spend time with their son, daughter and her family in Melbourne. Barry remembers that 2013 holiday only too well – it was the time of the Devonport tornado.
"There's a wine shop around the corner [from their son's] and we thought, 'We'll get some wine to have with dinner.' We were in there browsing and the phone went. It was my neighbour and she said: 'Look, a terrible thing's happened – we've just had a tornado go through the neighbourhood and unfortunately it latched onto your place and took most of the roof off'."
Neighbours pitched in to help, calling the Fire Service who put tarpaulins over what little remained of the roof to protect the gutted house from heavy rain. Police, gas and power suppliers joined the emergency response, and contractors picked up the wreckage within 24 hours, although some debris was found around the suburb days later.
The Herald reported the fierce windstorm lasted only a few minutes but left a trail of damage and briefly knocked out electricity. No one was hurt, although a driver had a lucky escape when a tree crashed through the rear window of her car.
The worst damage was in the Watkin's neighbourhood where debris littered the road and sheets of corrugated iron hung from power lines.
The couple saw the damage for themselves: "We saw our house on the Melbourne TV news later that night, for all the wrong reasons. There were other places that had some damage but unfortunately we were by far the worst."
Barry and Susie bought new plane tickets and arrived back in Devonport two days later – taking over from their Auckland based-son who'd done a great job in their absence, liaising with the respective agencies and staying overnight in the house, with no water and no electricity, to ensure it stayed secure.
They'd already been in contact with their insurer, AMI, while in Melbourne. "They were perfectly reassuring – 'Can you change your flights, can you get back OK, what do you need?' We said, 'We don't know, we'll know when we get there.'
"They were more concerned about us rather than the house. It was stressful and that sort of reaction from the company took a lot of the stress away. You could just feel your shoulders drop and start thinking about working through the next part."
After the assessor recommended securing the 1920s bungalow from further damage, AMI found the couple accommodation in a hotel and the rebuild began.
"From there, it was just a matter of working through the details at face-to-face meetings and the builders just got on to it. We were able to stay here while reconstruction was going on. To see it now, you'd never know anything had ever happened. In many ways it's been rebuilt better than it was before."
For Barry and Susie, it was a lesson in the value of insurance: "With insurance you think, 'We've paid a lot of money over the years,' but then it all got returned. I feel desperately sad for people who need insurance and have not been able to afford it.
"We're just middle-class wage-earners but we knew that with some things, you just have to insure – particularly something like a house, but also a boat or a caravan or a car. You may not feel it's a wise choice but, in our case, it certainly was.
"It was a bad experience but because of how it was handled it turned out really well."
AMI's statistics show that in 2020-21 financial year, the company helped customers with over 170,000 house, car and contents claims, paying out almost $390 million. That included more than $100m in paid out house claims.
The most common claims were for broken windows – more than 10,000 customers had glazing replaced. However, as the latest climate change reports indicate, wild weather is an increasing problem for New Zealand homeowners. AMI paid out just over $29m in claims for weather-related damage like hail, wind or snow.