Insurers send national repairers to ease Dubbo storm damage cleanup

A week after the multi-cell storm smashed the area on Thursday, February 9, NRMA Insurance's parent-company, IAG, had received 956 claims from Dubbo residents.

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During the storm, heavy rainfall and hail caused damage to homes and cars and left most of the town without power.

Terry Cheng, NRMA Insurance Major Events Response Team, said approximately 65 per cent of claims to NRMA were for property damage and 35 per cent were motor claims.

He said the insurer's assessors and builders had been on-the-ground for the past week, conducting emergency make-safe repairs to secure damaged homes, as well as working with customers to plan the repair process.

"We encourage any impacted customers to lodge their claim as soon as possible so we can provide essential support such as temporary accommodation and begin the assessment and repair process," Mr Cheng said.

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The insurer is one of two the Daily Liberal understands have sent national repairers to help take the pressure of local trades conducting home and motor repairs, however there could be more.

Mr Cheng said this provided "the most efficient possible claims experience for our customers".

Dubbo resident Chris Fallon - who had lodged an insurance claim for hail damage to his car - said he was concerned some of the repairer profits would be taken out of Dubbo.

"We've got panelbeaters in town who have been here decades, good capable ones ... they live in the town and they're local people. We should be supporting those after the floods and storms we've had," Mr Fallon said.

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Todd Richards, owner of Geoff Richards Panel Beating in Dubbo, said he was "under the pump" and he was thankful for the extra help.

"We've had in excess of 180 enquiries. We are working with a particular hail company that's coming in to do some work for a major insurer and we're organising a mass assessment day," Mr Richards told the Daily Liberal.

"We're going to be contacting clients and getting them in and hopefully getting them all quoted in that period."

He said the jobs he had booked-in could keep his team busy for up to 12 months - and more jobs might still come in.

"We're already pretty busy with the normal smash work, so we didn't need a hail storm, that's for sure. I can't imagine any other repairer in town did either," Mr Richards said.

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He said the extent of the damage to cars across town was still unknown.

"Some people might not know they have hail damage," he said, adding that for light hail, a fluorescent hail light was used by panelbeaters to identify indentations.

"Some of the hail was really light in some areas and in other areas of town it was really, really heavy. It's peppered the roof, boot and one side of the car - the hail really came down on an angle," Mr Richards said.