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.

Toka Tū Āke EQC automatically covers your property for natural disaster damage if you have a private insurance policy that includes fire cover (most do) in place when a natural disaster happens. This is called EQCover and is generally cover of $100,000 (+ GST) for your home and further cover for land around and under the house. Your private insurance may cover other damage. From 1 July 2019, EQCover increases for residential buildings from $100,000 (+ GST) to $150,000 (+ GST), affecting policy holders on the anniversary date of their existing policy (which is generally the annual renewal date), or if you take out a new policy.

Natural disaster insurance has more about EQCover, private insurance and rebuild costing.

Key things to check:

• Find out what Toka Tū Āke EQC covers and 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 EQCover. 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.