Canterbury earthquake building claims

What to do if you’ve found new damage

You can ask for a review of you claim if you find damage from the Canterbury earthquake sequence. To consider your request, we’ll need you to supply some evidence. That evidence you need to supply depends on the nature of the damage but needs to come from an qualified expert and should clearly identify the damage as coming from the CES.  

Reason why you might reopen your claim

There are several reasons why you might request a review of your building claim. 

You might be concerned that: 

• the settlement did not include all earthquake damage 
• the repair work or repair strategy hasn’t, or won’t, repair the earthquake damage to the standard required by the EQC Act
• the cash settlement wasn’t, or isn’t, sufficient to meet the reasonable costs of undertaking the repair strategy.  

We group drainage claims and building claims under buildings. There is more detail about what we require to review a building claim request below. Land claims are covered separately and details about land claim reviews are on this page.

Process to follow to submit for a review

If you think that you’ve found damage from the CES  you can request to have your claim reviewed.

Building claim review requests 

If your building claim relates to damage to drains on your property, there is some information you need to provide us before we can review your request. You will need to work with your drainage contractor to collect this information.

Drainage claim reviews

If your building claim relates to damage to drains on your property, there is some information you need to provide us before we can review your request. You will need to work with your drainage contractor to collect this information. 

Cover for private drains and sewers

At the time of the CES, EQCover was limited to drains and sewers on private land, also referred to as private laterals. It doesn’t include drains and sewers, operated or maintained by local councils or water utilities. 

Most of these systems carry wastewater and stormwater from a residential house or dwelling to either a public main or a public lateral. 

EQ Cover provides building cover for natural disaster damage to stormwater and sewer drainage within 60 metres of a residential dwelling where the drainage is owned by the dwelling owner/land owner. 

Inspection requirements

To submit your claim for review you will need to supply information only available from a professional inspection. Below is technical description of what you must include. It may make sense to give this to your drainage contractor. 

CCTV inspections of private drains and sewers must generally comply with the Water New Zealand Gravity Pipe Inspection Manual (4th Edition), Section B1.2 (Camera Operation)(external link) (requires login), as modified by Section C5 of the Manual. NHC also requires the following.

Inspection footage

• Video footage must be recorded downstream and on the upstream pull‑back. 
• The inspection must begin by showing the external area surrounding the dwelling prior to entry. 

On‑screen information The CCTV recording must clearly display: 

• Pipe type: Sewer (SS) or Stormwater (SW) 
• Street address 
• Entry type and identifier, for example: 
• Gully Trap 1 (GT1) 
• Downpipe 1 (DP1) 
• Dig‑up (DU)

Depth and distance 

Depth and distance measurements must be recorded at all damage locations and at the end of the inspected line. 

Shared drains

If your damaged drain is shared with a neighbouring property, the cost of repair is assessed on the basis of the total cost required to repair the entire shared drain. This cost is then apportioned between the affected properties according to the extent to which each property utilises the shared sections of the drain. 

Where your neighbour holds insurance, their contribution may be met by their private insurer, particularly where the claim value exceeds the applicable cap and responsibility has transitioned to their insurer. 

If your neighbour is uninsured, they will be responsible for funding their proportion of the repair costs themselves. 

Submissions to NHC

All drainage submissions must meet Natural Hazard Commission’s expert report requirements for Obtaining expert reports for Canterbury claims as outlined in our Obtaining expert reports for a Canterbury claim factsheet, and must include the following supporting information: 

• Drainage Assessment Report 
• As‑Built Damage Sketch 
• Proposed Repair Sketch 
• Repair and Reinstatement Costing 
• Photographs 
• CCTV Footage 
• Damage Log 

The settlement process for reopened claims

Once your property has been assessed, we’ll review the information you provide to determine what can be covered under the EQC Act. As part of this process, we will likely visit your home to verify the damage outlined in the information you’ve provided.

If we accept that your property has earthquake damage and the proposed repair costs are fair and reasonable, we’ll confirm this in writing to you.

If your natural disaster damage does not involve any structural repairs, we’ll advise you in writing to proceed with your repair. Once we receive evidence of completed repairs, along with any invoices or producer statements from your contractors, we’ll pay you (or your mortgagee) within seven working days.

If you discover further damage after the work has begun, please contact the person managing your claim. If the additional damage was caused by an earthquake or needs to be reinstated as part of the earthquake repairs in accordance with the EQC Act, we’ll confirm the extent of additional costs we may cover in writing.

An excess applies to EQCover (now NHCover) residential building claims and is calculated at 1% of the maximum amount payable, including GST. The person managing your claim will be able to provide more detail about your excess requirements.

If the damage is from more than one event

The multiple large-scale earthquakes and aftershocks in Christchurch are unique in world insurance history.  

Because of the complexity of the Canterbury earthquake sequence, a 2011 High Court ruling was necessary to decide how to handle multiple insurance claims. The ruling declared that natural hazards cover renews after each event as long as the property remains insured.  

If your home suffered damage in more than one earthquake event, we need to determine how much damage was caused by each individual quake, and whether subsequent quakes changed the required repair strategy. This process is called apportionment. 

Because cover begins again after each event, we must determine when the damage occurred so we can work out which costs may be covered under the EQC Act. 

There is a limit to EQCover for each event

During the period of the Canterbury earthquakes, Natural Hazards Commission Toka Tū Ake (formerly EQC Toka Tū Ake) covered earthquake-related damages up to $100,000 plus GST per claim.  

The EQCover cap that applies to your property is shown in the insurance policy or schedule that applied at the time of the earthquakes. If your damage has been assessed as close to the cap, we will talk to the insurer who held the policy at the time of the earthquake to determine whether there is any private insurer liability and who the claim will be handled by.  

If apportionment shows that no damage from any single event exceeds the EQCover cap, the settlement to the building will be managed by us. However, if damage from a single event is over the EQCover cap, then we will discuss your settlement options with you and  the private insurer. If you bought the home after the Canterbury earthquakes, a private insurer settlement may not be available if the damage is over the EQCover cap.

In many cases, a house may have damage over the cap amount, but settlement will still be managed by us because the damage is spread across more than one event. For example, a house with damage of $160,000 spread across two events could have two claims for $80,000 each, meaning the claim will remain with NHC rather than be handed over to your private insurer. 

How damage from each event is determined

If your property was assessed after each event, apportionment is straightforward as we’ll have records of the damage that occurred with each quake. But, if there was no time to collect this information before the next quake happened, we use a variety of industry-accepted methods to establish how damage should be apportioned.

Alongside the information you provide, this may involve comparing the damage with similar properties in the area where we know what damage occurred and when it occurred. The methods we use have been in place since the apportionment process was developed in 2011.

Apportionment ensures NHC and private insurers can show reinsurers how and when the damage was caused and show that NHC is only paying for the damage caused by the event claimed for.  

The apportionment process must be robust to maintain the credibility of NHC and the New Zealand insurance industry with international reinsurers.