“Gargantuan” insurance claim follows Auckland storm

Keeping the doors open for business at Dale Nixon Automotive in Browns Bay has taken a massive effort by owner Brett Piddington after a metre of water flooded his business during the Auckland storm.

so I went back to work for a couple of days,” Brett says. “I do need to progress it and get it working, there are a whole lot of things I need to buy, and I will have to spend the next few weekends to finish it off and it is way more complicated than it first appears.

“It is not as simple as getting a price on everything you have.”

On the upside, the business hasn’t had to close, Brett says, thanks to some incredibly long hours and the help from family, staff and friends.

“We worked all Saturday and Sunday, and everyone took a day off on Monday and I came in and organised the logistics of what I needed to do,” he says.

“We have slowly improved the situation, the place looks a mess, but we are working a little bit more efficiently.

“Still, still every time we go to pick something up, we find it’s missing, and we need to replace it.”

Once the insurance is out of the way, Brett says he looks forward to tackling the backlog of work he has booked in.

“We have plenty of work; I am always booked two weeks in advance,” he says.

It’s hard to believe, looking at the CCTV images captured on the day of the late January storm, but Brett’s business is back on its feet.

Following the evening storm on Friday 27 January, Brett hasn’t wasted a minute getting things in order and getting back to work.

But he says there has been one massive extra challenge to deal with.

“The problem is, I have never dealt with an insurance company before and it is a gargantuan task.”

Most daunting of all is researching and pricing some 300 items for replacement, and as he still had to diagnose and fix customers’ cars, Brett says he had to push it to the side for a few days.

“The insurance claim is such a massive thing for me to identify and price everything, it was just a complete mind bender for me.

“It was taking up too much of my energy and it was just killing me,