The remnants of Cyclone Fehi have cost insurers almost $38.5 million, the latest report from the Insurance Council of New Zealand (ICNZ) reveals.

On February 1, Cyclone Fehi ravaged New Zealand causing widespread wind damage and flooding in exposed coastal towns, resulting in Dunedin and Buller announcing states of emergency.

With Fehi hitting the country less than a month after the early January storm, ICNZ said, the costs of these events have been significant.

“We’ve had $65.2 million in insured losses from extreme weather events already this year, off the back of two storms in the first quarter of 2018, and we’re yet to receive the data for Cyclone Gita,” ICNZ chief executive officer Tim Grafton said. “It’s important that we don’t lose sight of the impact cumulative extreme weather events can have.

“And this is the sort of thing we can expect to see with ongoing climate change – more frequent, more severe storms.”

The provisional statistics from ICNZ show that Cyclone Fehi cost $22.3 million in domestic losses alone, more than 58% of the total cost of the event.