With Canterbury now moving into a period of milder weather, claims have started coming in thick and fast for insurers, who are beginning to assess the extent of the damage done to customers’ properties and land.
Commenting on the scale of the destruction, Vero executive general manager claims and operations Campbell Mitchell said that the rural community has certainly been the most affected, with the flooding and rainfall destroying stock, fencing and buildings.
He confirmed that Vero had received in excess of 101 claims as of Tuesday, June 01, with one of those claims being related to land damage.
“Following the significant weather event and severe flooding in Canterbury, Vero’s early focus has been on ensuring our impacted customers were safe and could access emergency help and accommodation,” Mitchell said.
“Our farming customers appear to have been badly affected, with significant flooding of infrastructure including fences, pumps, farm assets and some outlying or ancillary buildings. The situation, though, is evolving.”
“As the flood waters subside and rural landowners can assess damage to fences, livestock feed and ancillary buildings, and homeowners gain access to their properties, an increase in claims is expected,” he added.
“Damage claims extend from leaking roofs through to inundation of dwellings.”
Mitchell said that Vero had already sent out support teams to help assess the damage, and advised its broker network to get in touch with any potentially affected clients.
“We have engaged all resources and support partners across the area and have project management team members deployed to assist, in addition to having significant assessing and rural expertise available,” he said.
“Brokers are advised that, where customers need to lodge a claim, we recommend getting them in as soon as possible, documenting any damage (either photo or video) and creating a list of all the damaged items prior to attempting any clean-up effort.
“Our thoughts are with those of our customers affected by this extreme weather event.”
