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Get your insurance sorted

Properties are valuable assets, so make sure you have private insurance in place that will enable you to repair or rebuild your property if it suffers natural disaster damage.

Natural Hazards Commission Toka Tū Āke automatically covers your property for damage from natural hazards if you have a private insurance policy that includes fire cover (most do) in place when damage occurs.

For each natural hazard event that happens, there is a maximum that we can pay towards rebuilding or repairing your home. This maximum amount is called the building cover cap and is generally $300,000 plus GST.

Any cover over this amount is provided by your private insurance policy. The maximum settlement amount that you can be paid is set out in your policy and it’s important to regularly check that this is enough to rebuild. 

We also provide limited cover for certain areas of land under and around your home, some bridges, culverts, and retaining walls.

Key things to check:

  • Find out what NHC Toka Tū Āke covers, what your private insurer covers, as well as what is not covered (these are known as exclusions).
  • Check your private insurance cover is sufficient to rebuild your property if a natural disaster damages it to the extent that a rebuild is required. Review your level of cover regularly so it keeps pace with any changes in the value of the property and any increases in construction costs.
  • Can you find your insurance documents? These include the terms of the policy as well as your policy schedule which should record information about the property insured. Should a disaster strike you’ll want to be able to access these documents easily. Store hard copies in a safe place and upload a digital copy to the cloud or to a USB stick.
  • Does your private insurance cover consequential loss, such as loss of rent? It’s not part of the natural hazards cover we provide. You might want to consider arranging private insurance to cover you for any financial loss you might incur if your tenants can’t live in the property during a repair or rebuild.