As if the recent floods alongside Cyclone Gabrielle weren't enough - mother nature decided to throw an earthquake into the mix with a much of the southern regions of the North Island being rattled by a magnitude 6.3 earthquake that occurred just off the Kapiti Coast. GeoNet received about 50,000 "felt" reports across a wide region including the North and the South Island. Please refer to our blog "The Next Big One ..." for an explanation on quake measurement and impact.

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One person reported that it "felt like sharp uneven waves were running through the building from one end to the other." From where I was sitting at the time, the quake sounded a lot worse than it actually was, and arrived with a loud roar as the event unfolded. It was certainly big enough to take precautionary action and check on the family.

The quake was also large enough for me to review the GeoNet shake statistics to check whether Peak Ground Velocity (or shaking intensity) had met our policy trigger of 20cms per second. Thankfully last nights earthquake was a deep one (depth 50km) and that mitigated much of the force that you might expect to see out of a M6.3 quake. The largest Peak Ground Velocity ground movement was about 4cm per second and this was recorded by the GeoNet strong motion sensor at Foxton Beach. Not enough to trigger our policy.

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We provided a text communication to all our clients after the event last night, providing an update of the earthquake as it relates to their policy and their eligibility to make a claim. The team at Bounce was ready to proactively respond to support our clients after this event.

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As always, thank you for your ongoing support and trust.