Money After a Natural Disaster: Claims, Relief and Rebuild
ðªïž The money side of recovery
An earthquake, flood, landslip or storm can damage your home and your finances at the same time. Alongside the shock and the clean-up, you face a run of money questions: who pays to fix the house, what happens to your belongings, where will you live while it is repaired, how will you cover food and bills if you cannot work, and how do you keep your mortgage on track. New Zealand has a specific safety net for this, the natural hazards insurance scheme, which sits underneath your ordinary home insurance and pays the first slice of the cost to repair or rebuild your home and the land around it. On top of that there is help from your private insurer for the rest, hardship support from Work and Income and Civil Defence, and options with your bank. This guide walks through each of those, in the order you are likely to need them, with worked New Zealand examples. Getting the paperwork and evidence right early makes a real difference to how much you recover and how fast.
Who runs the scheme now
On 1 July 2024 the Earthquake Commission became the Natural Hazards Commission Toka TÅ« Ake, and its new law, the Natural Hazards Insurance Act 2023, took effect and replaced the old Earthquake Commission Act 1993. The new name reflects the range of events covered, which is much wider than earthquakes. The scheme covers natural hazard damage from earthquakes, natural landslips, volcanic activity, geothermal activity, tsunami, and, for residential land, storms and floods.
You do not buy natural hazards cover separately. When you take out private house insurance with fire cover, a Natural Hazards Insurance levy is built into your premium, and that gives you access to the scheme automatically. This is why keeping your home insurance current matters so much: let it lapse and you lose the natural hazards cover too.
What the scheme pays for
The Natural Hazards Commission provides the first layer of insurance for two things: your home (the building) and limited areas of your land. It does not cover your contents.
| What is covered | The detail |
|---|---|
| Your home (building) | Up to $300,000 plus GST per dwelling. Above that cap, your private insurer pays. |
| Residential land | The land under your home and within 8 metres of it, plus the main access way up to 60 metres, and limited cover for some retaining walls, bridges and culverts. |
| Contents | Not covered by the Commission. You need your own contents insurance for belongings. |
The layers of cover, from the ground up
It helps to picture your home cover as a stack. Understanding the order tells you who pays what.
- First layer, the Natural Hazards Commission: pays natural hazard damage to your home up to $300,000 plus GST, and covered land damage.
- Second layer, your private insurer: pays the cost of repair or rebuild above the Commission cap, up to the sum insured on your policy.
- Contents, your private insurer: a separate contents policy pays for damaged belongings.
For a total rebuild that costs more than $345,000, the Commission cap on its own will not rebuild your house. The gap is covered by your private house policy, but only up to your sum insured. If your sum insured is set too low for what your home actually costs to rebuild, you can still be underinsured even with both layers in place. This is why getting your sum insured right matters.
ð Lodging a claim and getting paid
The way claims are handled changed with the new scheme. For most homeowners you no longer deal with the Commission directly. You lodge everything with your own private insurer, who manages the natural hazards portion on the Commission's behalf.
Who you contact
In most cases you make a claim for natural hazard damage through your private insurer, not the Commission. Your insurer becomes your single point of contact and assesses and manages the claim from start to finish, including the part that the Commission ultimately pays. If you use an insurance broker, they can handle much of that contact for you. If you genuinely do not know who your insurer is, you can record the damage on the Commission's web form, but your claim will not progress until you identify your insurer and lodge with them.
You are encouraged to lodge your claim within three months of the event, and you have a maximum of two years to lodge a claim for natural hazard damage. Do not sit on it. Early claims get assessed sooner, and leaving it close to the two-year limit risks losing the claim altogether.
Keep evidence, and do not throw things away too soon
Before you start cleaning up, take clear photos and video of the damage, room by room, and of the building and land. Photograph damaged contents before you move or dump them. Keep receipts for anything you spend, from emergency repairs to accommodation. Insurers assess claims on evidence, and the single most common way people lose money is by clearing out and skip-binning damaged belongings before they are recorded.
You are allowed to make emergency repairs to stop further damage, for example tarping a roof or turning off water. Do that, but photograph the damage first and keep the receipts. Do not throw out damaged whiteware, furniture or flooring until your insurer confirms it has been recorded for the claim.
Above the cap, and contents
When repairs come in under the Commission cap, the natural hazards layer covers the building work, less your policy excess. When a rebuild costs more than the cap, your private insurer pays the amount above it, up to your sum insured. Your contents are handled entirely through your own contents policy, because the Commission does not cover contents at all. Renters are in the same position for their belongings: the house is the landlord's concern, but a tenant's own possessions are only covered if the tenant holds contents insurance.
Somewhere to live while you wait
The Natural Hazards Commission covers the building and land, not the cost of living somewhere else. Temporary accommodation, for example rent on another place while your home is repaired or rebuilt, usually comes from your private house or contents policy, if it includes temporary accommodation cover, often up to a set dollar amount or time limit. Check your policy wording early so you know what you can claim and keep every receipt.
An excess is the first part of a claim you pay yourself. Natural hazards and private claims can each carry an excess, so check your policy documents so a smaller repair bill does not catch you out. For a large rebuild the excess is minor next to the total, but for a modest repair it can be most of the cost.
ð€ Relief money, your bank, and scams
Insurance rebuilds the house, but it does not put food on the table next week or cover the mortgage while you are displaced. Two other sources of help fill that gap: government hardship support, and your own bank or lender.
Civil Defence Payments from Work and Income
When a civil defence emergency is declared, or an event meets the guidelines for one, Work and Income can make Civil Defence Payments to people affected. These help with the immediate costs of a disaster, and in most cases they do not depend on your income or assets, and you do not have to be on a benefit to qualify.
- Emergency food, clothing and bedding if yours has been damaged or destroyed
- Accommodation costs if you have had to leave your home
- Loss of income if you cannot work because of the emergency
Contact Work and Income as soon as you can after an event, by phone or online, and keep receipts for what you spend. Civil Defence Payments are meant to bridge the immediate days and weeks, separate from any insurance claim, which takes far longer to settle.
Other government and community help
Depending on the event, Work and Income may also offer standard hardship support such as Special Needs Grants for essential costs, and there may be community-level recovery grants set up after larger disasters. Councils and Civil Defence groups run welfare centres and can point you to local support. It is worth asking rather than assuming you do not qualify.
Talking to your bank or lender
If a disaster has hit your income or your home, contact your bank early rather than missing a payment quietly. Lenders have hardship processes and, after major events, often set up dedicated relief. Options can include a short repayment holiday, moving to interest-only for a period, or restructuring the loan. These are not free, since interest usually keeps accruing, but they buy breathing room while insurance and income sort themselves out.
Disasters bring out scammers. Be wary of anyone who contacts you out of the blue claiming to be from your insurer, the Commission, a bank or a government agency and asks for payment, bank logins or personal details, or of builders demanding large cash deposits upfront for urgent repairs. Verify by calling the organisation on a number you find yourself, never a number or link the caller gives you. Genuine agencies will not pressure you to pay on the spot.
A simple order of actions
- Make the home safe, then photograph and record all the damage before you clean up.
- Contact your private insurer to lodge the claim, well within the two-year limit.
- Contact Work and Income about Civil Defence Payments for immediate costs.
- Contact your bank if income or repayments are affected.
- Keep every receipt, and check for scams before paying anyone.
ð¢ Worked examples
These four New Zealand scenarios show how the layers of cover and support fit together. The figures are illustrative, but the rules and caps are current.
Situation: An earthquake cracks the foundation and internal linings of Aroha's home. The assessed cost to repair the building is $85,000. Aroha has private house insurance with fire cover, so she has natural hazards cover automatically.
Aroha lodges the claim through her own insurer, who manages it from start to finish on the Commission's behalf. Because the whole repair sits under the building cap, her private insurer's top-up layer is not needed for the building. She pays only the excess that applies to her policy.
Even though the Commission ultimately pays this claim, Aroha never contacts the Commission. Her insurer is the single point of contact and settles the claim for her.
Situation: An earthquake makes the Patels' home unsafe and it must be fully rebuilt. The rebuild is quoted at $520,000. Their private house policy is sum insured at $600,000, which is enough to cover a rebuild at today's costs.
The two layers combine to cover the whole rebuild because the Patels' sum insured is high enough. In practice their insurer manages the entire claim and recovers the Commission's share behind the scenes, so the family deals with one company.
If the Patels had insured for only $300,000, the maths breaks. The Commission still pays $345,000, but a policy sum insured of $300,000 is less than the rebuild, so above the cap there is nothing left to draw on for the extra cost. They would have to fund the shortfall themselves. Setting the sum insured to the real rebuild cost is what prevents this.
Situation: Jess rents a flat that floods in a storm. The building is her landlord's concern, but her own belongings, a sofa, bed, whiteware, clothes and a laptop, are ruined. The damage to her contents is assessed at $18,000. Jess holds a contents policy with a sum insured of $25,000 and a $400 excess.
If Jess had no contents insurance, she would receive nothing from the natural hazards scheme for her ruined belongings, because the Commission covers only the building and land, neither of which she owns. She could still apply for Civil Defence help toward emergency essentials, but that is nowhere near the value of replacing everything. This is exactly why renters need their own contents cover.
Situation: A severe storm floods the Williams family's home and a civil defence emergency is declared. They evacuate for several days, cannot work for a week, and need to replace ruined food and bedding while they are out of the house.
Because an emergency has been declared, the family can apply for a Civil Defence Payment even though they are not on a benefit, and in most cases their income and assets are not tested. The payment helps with accommodation, food and bedding, and their loss of income, separate from and much faster than their insurance claim, which is still being assessed weeks later. They keep receipts for everything and lodge their house claim through their insurer in parallel.
Notice the family runs two tracks: Civil Defence support for the immediate crisis, and an insurance claim for the longer rebuild. Treat them as separate processes so a slow insurance settlement does not leave you without cash in the first weeks.
Sources
Figures and rules in this guide were verified in July 2026 against: the Natural Hazards Commission Toka TÅ« Ake (naturalhazards.govt.nz) on the change from the Earthquake Commission on 1 July 2024, natural hazards cover (NHCover), the $300,000 plus GST building cap per dwelling that applies to damage on or after 1 July 2024, the land cover limits, contents being excluded, how cover is obtained through a private house policy with fire cover, the claims process through your private insurer as single point of contact, and the guidance to claim within three months and no later than two years; the Natural Hazards Insurance Act 2023, which took effect on 1 July 2024 and replaced the Earthquake Commission Act 1993, via legislation.govt.nz and the Treasury; and Work and Income (workandincome.govt.nz) on Civil Defence Payments for food, clothing, bedding, accommodation and loss of income, and that they are generally not income or asset tested when an emergency is declared. Dollar figures in the worked examples are illustrative.
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