Swiss catastrophe data firm Perils has lifted its loss estimate for the New Zealand flood catastrophe that struck Auckland and neighbouring regions in late January to $NZ1.995 billion ($1.853 billion). 

That’s up from a May estimate of $NZ1.754 billion ($1.64 billion). Personal lines property losses represent 69% of the total, and commercial lines the rest.

Head of Perils Asia-Pacific Darryl Pidcock thanked insurance partners for making detailed loss data available “during such challenging times”.

“The New Zealand insurance industry continues to allocate considerable resources to managing the high volume of claims from this event, as well as complex cases relating to landslide-related damage and some overlap with Cyclone Gabrielle in certain regions,” Mr Pidcock said. 

In May, Perils estimated insured losses from Cyclone Gabrielle, which passed through the North Island region only ten days after the record floods, were $NZ1.93 billion ($1.81 billion). 

Both events were unprecedented for the New Zealand insurance market and far exceed previous records for weather-related losses, excluding earthquake. Gabrielle affected the entire North Island, while losses from the January floods were concentrated in the greater Auckland Region, New Zealand’s most populated metropolitan area with around 1.5 million people.  

Intense rain over the city on January 27 and again on February 1 overwhelmed drainage capacities. Four people died and several thousand were evacuated following a rare red-alert state of emergency declaration.

Extraordinarily warm and humid weather throughout the New Zealand summer culminated in record-breaking rainstorms, causing intense pluvial, fluvial and sewage flooding which affected many properties and severely impacted vital infrastructure in and around Auckland.

The floods are the first New Zealand insured loss event reported by Perils since it started covering the market in 2019. The latest estimate for the event, the third, is also the first time Perils has provided a detailed industry loss footprint at postcode resolution for a New Zealand catastrophe.

Loss amounts have been split into buildings, contents and business interruption losses where available, complemented with postcode-level rain accumulations to help better understand the flood vulnerability of insured property in the region.

“We believe this dataset is unique and, together with data on sums insured and rainfall accumulation at identical resolution, it provides a wealth of insight,” Mr Pidcock said. "Understanding cat risk requires reliable benchmark data.”

A flood loss estimate update will be published in February.