What does EQC (Natural Hazards Commission) cover?

The Earthquake Commission became the Natural Hazards Commission Toka Tū Ake on 1 July 2024, when the Natural Hazards Insurance Act 2023 replaced the old EQC Act. The cover, now called natural hazards cover, kept the same basic shape: it attaches automatically to any home insurance policy that includes fire cover, funded by a levy collected through your premium. You do not apply for it separately, and you cannot hold it without a private policy.

Your home is covered for physical damage caused by earthquake, landslip, volcanic activity, hydrothermal activity and tsunami, up to a cap that currently sits at $300,000 plus GST for each event. Damage above the cap falls to your private insurer under the terms of your own policy, which is why the sum insured on that policy still matters enormously after a major event.

Natural hazards cover also extends to insured residential land: broadly the land under and immediately around your home and parts of the main access way, within set limits. Unlike the building cover, land cover includes damage caused by storm and flood. After a major weather event this is often the only natural hazards claim available, and it can fund repair of slips and land damage that no private policy touches.

Contents are not covered at all; that protection comes only from your private contents policy. Storm and flood damage to the building itself is your private insurer's territory, not the Commission's. Gradual damage, wear and tear, and most structures beyond the home and its immediate land sit outside the scheme, and items like swimming pools, fences and standalone garages have their own rules and limits. When in doubt, the answer lives in your policy and the Commission's published cover guides.

You lodge the claim with your own private insurer, which handles the natural hazards portion on the Commission's behalf and its own portion under your policy, so there is one front door. Lodge promptly, photograph the damage, and keep receipts for any urgent work. If you disagree with an outcome, ask the insurer to review it, and take professional advice where the gap is large.