Storm damage & insurance · Christchurch

Roof damaged in a storm? We make it safe first and sort the paperwork after.

When a nor’wester peels a sheet back at 2am, the order of operations is simple: stop the water, photograph everything, then deal with the insurer. We do all three, and we’ve done it 600+ times for Canterbury insurance jobs since 2012.

Book my free storm inspection 03 741 0227

Emergency make-safe available same day after big blows. Yes, including Sunday.

Home under a heavy evening sky before a storm

Same dayemergency make-safe

600+Canterbury insurance jobs

Assessor-readyphoto reports & scopes

First moves

Storm’s just been through? Do these four things.

Photograph everything from the ground
Lifted sheets, bent flashings, the neighbour’s trampoline in your spouting, water stains inside as they appear. Timestamped photos from day one make the claim conversation short.
Stay off the roof
Wet steel after a storm is a skating rink, and a loose sheet can move with you standing on it. Buckets and towels inside, professionals up top.
Ring your insurer and tell them it’s coming
Lodging early is fine and sensible. Most Canterbury insurers will simply ask you for a quote and a photo report, which is exactly what we produce, or they’ll send an assessor, in which case our scope of works gives them something proper to assess against.
Be wary of whoever’s suddenly quoting cheap in your street
After a big blow, the out-of-town utes appear. Christchurch has seen this movie since 2011. Ask for an LBP number and a physical address, and if either request causes offence, you have your answer.

Know your enemy

What Canterbury storms actually do to roofs

Nor’west gales get under sheet edges and work fixings loose over hours, not seconds. A sheet that’s lifted once will lift again in the next blow unless the fixings and often the timber underneath are dealt with, which is why “screwed it back down” is a patch, not a repair.
Ridge and barge flashings peel first. They catch the wind like a sail’s edge. Bent flashing looks minor from the ground and funnels water straight into your top plates.
Flying debris punches and dents. Branches, trampolines, the neighbour’s outdoor furniture. Punctures are obvious; the dents that crack the coating show up as rust spots next winter, which is why we photograph them now.
Hail happens here more than people think. Ask Timaru about November 2019. On steel it’s mostly cosmetic dents; on old brittle tiles it’s cracks that leak the following June.
Old repairs fail first. Silicone smears and stick-on patches from the post-quake years let go in exactly these conditions. If your roof has a history, say so and we’ll check those spots first.

No ticket-clipping

How we handle the insurance side with you

We’re not claims managers and we don’t clip the ticket on your payout. What we do is make the process short:

Make-safe first
Tarps, temporary fixings, whatever stops the water today. Insurers expect you to prevent further damage, and they cover reasonable make-safe costs on a valid claim, so keep our invoice.
Free inspection and photo report
Every face, every flashing, damage marked and photographed. If the damage won’t clear your excess, we tell you that on the spot and you’ve lost nothing but half an hour.
A proper scope of works
Itemised, priced, GST included, in the format assessors actually want. A vague one-line quote is how claims stall; a proper scope is how they settle.
We talk to your insurer if you’d rather not
With your say-so, we’ll deal with the assessor directly, answer their questions, and meet them at the house.
We do the repair
You pay your excess, the insurer covers the rest, and the work carries our normal guarantee, 2 years on repairs, 10 on full re-roofs.

One thing we won’t do: inflate a scope so the claim “covers your excess.” That’s fraud, it’s how dodgy operators ended up in the paper after the quakes, and it’s the fastest way to identify a company you shouldn’t let on your roof.

Straight answers

The questions everyone asks

Will claiming push my premium up?

Weather events are treated as region-wide by NZ insurers; your street got the same storm whether you claim or not. Skipping a legitimate claim mostly means you paid for cover you didn’t use. If in doubt, ask your insurer or broker the question directly before lodging.

What about the quakes and NHC?

Storm damage is a private insurance matter, not a Natural Hazards Commission one. But if we find old unrepaired quake damage while we’re up there, we photograph it separately and tell you, because muddling the two on a claim helps nobody.

The assessor’s estimate seems light. Now what?

Ask for our scope to be reviewed against it, item by item. Most shortfalls are things the assessor couldn’t see from the ladder, and photos fix that. We’ve had plenty of scopes revised upward on a second look; it’s rarely a fight, it’s just documentation.

Proof of work