A severe winter storm struck the Wellington region and parts of the North Island on June 26, grounding approximately 200 flights, cutting power to more than 7,000 properties, and causing road closures, slips, and infrastructure damage across multiple districts. The June 26 losses have not yet been captured in Insurance Council of New Zealand (ICNZ) data, but the damage profile points to material exposure across domestic property, commercial material damage, motor, and business interruption lines.
According to 1News, Wellington Airport effectively shut down for most of the day as southerly winds reached near 100km/h, with gusts exceeding 50 knots making operations near-impossible. Both Air New Zealand and Jetstar services were affected, with most morning, afternoon, and evening flights cancelled. A Wellington Airport spokesperson confirmed approximately 200 flights were affected.
The transport network across the wider region was also significantly disrupted. According to RNZ, the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) advised drivers to take extreme care on State Highways 1 and 2 near Wellington. The left-hand lanes of SH1 were closed after being affected by waves and spray from the harbour, and the Ngauranga-to-Petone shared path was closed to cyclists. Ferry sailings were cancelled for the day. A tree fell across State Highway 2 near Kaitoke, blocking traffic over the Remutaka Hill, while multiple roads across South Wairarapa were closed, with the local council warning residents that heavy rain was not expected to ease until the following morning.
More than 7,000 customers in the lower North Island were without power. A total of 5,280 properties on the Powerco network were cut off, including more than 3,000 customers in Taranaki and more than 1,300 in Whanganui. In Wellington, 1,789 properties were without power, including 900 households in Naenae in Lower Hutt. Wellington Electricity chief executive Greg Skelton said restoration was not a short-term exercise, warning the process could take two to three days and potentially stretch into mid-week. “Our first priority will be to attend faults which present a danger to public safety before prioritising the restoration of power to the largest affected areas. In some cases, we will not be able to begin restoration work until wind speeds reduce enough for crews to safely work from poles and elevated platforms,” Skelton said, as reported by 1News. MetService meteorologist Braydon White noted the worst winds appeared to have passed by evening, with conditions expected to ease slowly overnight.
Hutt City Council reported surface flooding at the corner of Whitehall Road and Wellington Road in Wainuiomata, a closure of the Port Road and Barnes Street intersection, and a slip in Lowry Bay affecting two properties. A second slip on the Wainuiomata side of Wainui Hill Road was noted as likely to cause further travel disruptions. “The ground is saturated and the risk of slips remains high,” the council said, as reported by RNZ. Wastewater systems also came under pressure, with raw sewage discharged near the shoreline in southern Wellington following the heavy rainfall. Residents of Ōwhiro Bay and Breaker Bay were advised to stay out of the water for 48 hours.
The closure of Wellington Airport for a full trading day, combined with the suspension of ferry sailings affecting freight and passenger movements across Cook Strait, extends potential business interruption exposure well beyond straightforward property damage. While the June 26 losses are not yet captured in ICNZ data, the event profile is consistent with prior weather events that have generated claims across multiple lines simultaneously.
The accumulating loss picture for 2025 and 2026 gives the event additional weight. The South Island severe weather events of October 2025 produced $158.9 million in insured losses across nearly 17,000 claims – the largest single weather event recorded in the ICNZ database for that year – against a full-year 2025 total of approximately $278.2 million. In 2026, a February severe weather event generated approximately $83.9 million in insured losses across more than 10,000 claims, spanning domestic property, commercial material damage, business interruption, and motor. A January 2026 event produced approximately $75.9 million in insured losses across more than 5,000 claims. Cyclone Tam in April 2026 added a further $51.4 million across nearly 7,000 claims, according to the ICNZ Cost of Natural Disasters database. The ICNZ has tracked more than 150 severe weather events and natural disasters since it began keeping records in 1968, with New Zealand property described as among the most heavily insured in the world relative to other countries. Total economic losses from weather events consistently exceed insured losses, meaning these figures capture only part of the broader financial impact.
The pattern of losses across 2025 and 2026 has sharpened the insurance sector’s calls for structural change in how New Zealand funds disaster risk reduction. In its 2025 Annual Review published in March, ICNZ chief executive Kris Faafoi said the direction of reform was clear but that delivery now needed to follow. “Recent severe weather events are a reminder of the damage, disruption, and devastation to life, property, and communities. Reducing risk upfront through smarter planning, resilient infrastructure, and better information is essential if we are to protect communities and sustain access to insurance over the long term,” Faafoi said.
Earlier this month, ICNZ proposed replacing the current Fire and Emergency New Zealand (FENZ) levy with a Community Protection Levy, under which FENZ would move to direct Crown funding and an estimated $600 million to $700 million per year would be redirected into natural hazard resilience projects. The proposal cites the $15 million Awanui Flood Protection Scheme in Kaitaia – estimated by ICNZ to have avoided approximately $50 million in damage – as a model for the returns available from pre-disaster investment.
ICNZ and the Insurance Council of Australia (ICA) also signed a Memorandum of Understanding earlier this month to coordinate advocacy and share risk insights across both markets. ICA chief executive Andrew Hall said the financial scale of the problem now required a joint response. “Extreme weather is no longer just a community issue, it is a fiscal one, and governments across Australia and New Zealand are confronting the same mounting costs to their budgets, their infrastructure, and their economies,” Hall said.
