Auckland Anniversary floods & Cyclone Gabrielle: The Road to Recovery

Good progress has been made on settling insurance claims from the Auckland Anniversary floods and Cyclone Gabrielle. 87% of all private insurance claims (99,798 out of 115,353) have been settled, as reported by the Insurance Council of New Zealand (ICNZ) in December 2023. *

It’s been heart-warming to witness the resilience of communities as they rally to support each other over the past year, and here at Rothbury, seeing the way our teams across the country have stepped up to support our clients.

Our priority continues to be supporting our clients in their time of need and we are pleased that 91% of our client’s claims have been fully settled from these twin climate disasters (as of 1 February 2024).

This highlights why it’s important to have the right insurance in place to protect your business, home and assets. You can never be sure when disaster may strike, and you need help getting back on your feet.

The Auckland Anniversary floods and Cyclone Gabrielle are two of the largest insurance weather events in New Zealand’s history and are expected to cost the insurance industry NZ$3.6 billion (from 115,353 claims), according to ICNZ. *

For context, these two events have vastly exceeded the cost for extreme weather general insurance claims in 2022 ($351 million), which was a record in itself. **

Given the sheer scale and cost of the damage, the impact of the Auckland Anniversary floods and Cyclone Gabrielle has been felt extensively and will continue to change the landscape of the insurance industry in the years ahead.

Graph data from Insurance Council of New Zealand: https://www.icnz.org.nz/industry/cost-of-natural-disasters/

• The increasing frequency and intensity of extreme weather events has put pressure on insurers due to the high volume of claims, driving up the price of insurance for businesses and homeowners alike.

• Insurers have been reviewing their pricing strategies and will be looking at ways to cover the increasing costs of extreme weather events. This may include:
  • Limiting the availability of flood cover in some areas.
  • A greater use of risk-based pricing from some insurers, where insurance premiums paid by owners of flood-prone homes are typically higher compared to people with homes in lower flood risk areas. Identical homes and businesses in different geographic areas can have different insurance premiums, exclusions and coverage limits.