KEY POINTS:
Otago and Southland yesterday started the big clean-up after torrential rain that caused flooding in many areas.
The rain led to the evacuation of families from their homes and forced the closure of several main roads in the lower South Island.
Senior Sergeant Brian Benn, from Dunedin, said river levels dropped significantly overnight but the rain had caused slips in many areas around the city.
State Highway 1 was closed north of Dunedin near Waikouaiti on Monday night, stranding dozens of motorists overnight.
Transit had one lane open yesterday morning.
"About 30 motorists spent the night in Waikouaiti and were put up in the local RSA and a local hotel," Mr Benn said.
At Milton, south of Dunedin, flooding also forced the closure of SH1.
"You can't get through there unless you have a boat." he said.
Several roads in Dunedin city were affected by slips.
Oamaru and several nearby rural townships bore the brunt of the heavy rain, which closed schools, forced some people to evacuate their houses and disrupted traffic.
Stewart Island has also had heavy rain and high winds, which caused slips and damaged roads.
Southland District Council staff were going to the island yesterday to survey the damage.
The Tower insurance company says the severe weather in the North Island is expected to cost it a higher than expected $4 million in claims, out of a total of $70 million for the industry.
The second half of Tower's financial year usually featured higher claims because of weather-related events, the company said, but the amount this year was expected to exceed its budget by about $2.7 million after tax.
That assumed no other one-off events in the six months to September 30.
Tower received claims after the Taranaki tornadoes, and flooding in Auckland, Northland and Coromandel, all last month.
"The recent extreme weather events were an issue for the whole industry, and although significant in severity and unusual in frequency, are not totally unexpected for an insurer such as Tower, which operates in this market," said chief executive Rob Flannagan.
Last year, Tower's New Zealand net profit rose 36 per cent to $33.8 million.
The general insurance division has been hit by claims resulting from rioting in Tonga last November.
- NZPA
