Will Home Insurance Pay for Paving Repairs in WA?

Do this before anything is repaired

The evidence checklist, in the order a claim needs it.

Claims on paving and retaining work are won or lost on evidence gathered in the first day, before the site is tidied up. Once the broken blocks go to the tip and the void is backfilled, nobody can prove what caused what. Tick these off as you go, print the list, or leave the page open on your phone while you walk the site. Your ticks are saved in this browser.

1. Before anything is moved, cleaned or thrown out

Photograph the whole area wide first, from at least three positions, so the assessor can see where the damage sits on the block.
Photograph the damage close up, with a tape measure or a ruler in the frame on every crack, lip and void.
Photograph the cause if it is still there: the fallen branch, the tyre marks, the split poly pipe, the collapsed soakwell lid.
Take a short video walking the length of the wall or pavement, narrating what you are looking at and the date.
Photograph the drainage: the agricultural drain outlet behind the wall, the soakwells, the downpipes and where they discharge.
Do only the make-safe work, and photograph the site before and after that make-safe.

2. Measure and write down

Measure the affected area in square metres for paving, and height times length in square metres of face for a wall. That is how the repair is priced.
Measure the lean of a wall with a spirit level at three or four points and write down millimetres of lean per metre of height.
Measure crack widths and the depth of any dip or void, and note where the deepest point sits relative to a downpipe or the garage.
Write the date and time you first noticed it, and the date and time of the storm, impact or leak you believe caused it.
Note the weather that day. Bureau of Meteorology observations for Geraldton are public and an assessor will check them.
Write down the age of the paving or wall and who built it, if you know. Guessing here is worse than saying you do not know.

3. Keep, do not throw away

Keep the broken pavers or blocks, stacked to one side, until the assessor has attended. They show the failure mode.
Keep the failed component itself: the split pipe, the cracked soakwell lid, the sheared post. Bag it and label it with the date.
Keep any spare pavers from the original job. Matching weathered Geraldton limestone later is difficult and expensive.
Keep receipts for every dollar you spend on the make-safe, including hire of barriers, a tarp or a skip.

4. Paperwork to gather before you lodge

Find the product disclosure statement and read the other structures or outbuildings section, plus the exclusions list.
Confirm your excess and whether a separate higher excess applies to storm, earth movement or an unoccupied period.
Dig out the original invoice, quote or building permit for the paving or wall to prove it was built properly.
Gather any maintenance records: re-sanding, sealing, drain cleaning. These directly rebut a lack-of-maintenance argument.
Get an itemised written scope of works with quantities and rates, not a single lump sum figure.
Ask your contractor for a short written causation statement saying what failed and whether it was sudden.
Ask for their ABN and a current certificate of currency for public liability insurance. The insurer will want both.

5. Before you accept any settlement

Get 2 independent written quotes so you can tell whether a cash offer is short before you sign anything.
Check the scope includes base repair, edge restraint and drainage, not just relaying the pavers that broke.
Confirm in writing who carries the workmanship warranty and for how long.
Ask whether a building permit is needed for the rebuilt wall and who is lodging it.
Ask, in writing, what happens if hidden damage is found once the pavement is lifted.

Mistakes that get a paving claim declined

Clearing the site and tipping the broken material before the assessor attends.
Commissioning the full repair before the claim is decided, then asking to be reimbursed.
Describing a slow failure as sudden. Assessors lift a paver and read the bedding sand, and an overstated claim can void the whole thing.
Rolling unrelated tired paving into the same scope so it gets paid for at the same time.
Missing the notification window in your policy by waiting weeks to lodge.

Covered event or wear and tear: the line insurers draw.

Every home policy sold in Australia works the same way underneath the marketing. It lists the events it will pay for, and it lists the causes it will never pay for. Your claim lives or dies on which list your damage lands in, not on how expensive or unfair the damage feels.

The listed events that matter for paving and retaining work are storm and rainwater, impact by a vehicle or a falling tree, escape of liquid such as a burst water service or a failed pool line, fire, malicious damage and earthquake. The permanent exclusions are wear and tear, gradual deterioration, lack of maintenance, faulty workmanship or design, erosion, tree roots, and settlement or movement of the earth that is not itself caused by a listed event. Most policies also exclude action of the sea, which matters on the coastal fringe at Tarcoola Beach and Drummond Cove.

The practical test the assessor applies is whether the damage happened at an identifiable moment. A retaining wall that pushed out 40mm during one winter front because a tree fell against it is an event. The same wall pushed out 40mm over six winters because the drain behind it silted up is maintenance, and it will be declined however well you argue. The staged deterioration described in sinking paving warning signs is exactly the pattern an assessor is looking for when they decide the damage was gradual.

Retaining walls deserve a separate warning. They are one of the most commonly excluded items in Australian home insurance. Some policies exclude them entirely, some cover them only if they support the insured building, and some cover them only for a short list of events with a sub-limit well below the rebuild cost. At $350 to $650 per square metre of face, a 12 metre long wall averaging 1.2 metres high is a $5,000 to $9,400 job, and a sub-limit of a couple of thousand dollars leaves you carrying most of it. Check the wording before the storm, not after.

Make-safe, excess and the assessor: how the process actually runs.

The make-safe

A make-safe is the minimum work to stop further damage and remove the danger: barricading a leaning wall, tarping exposed soil, fencing a void, propping under engineering advice. Insurers authorise it before the assessor attends and it forms part of the claim, typically $600 to $1,800 for paving and retaining work. Two rules. Get the authorisation in writing with a reference number, and keep it to a genuine make-safe. A contractor who starts rebuilding under the banner of a make-safe puts your claim at risk, and if the claim is declined the unauthorised work is yours to pay.

The excess maths

A standard home excess in WA sits around $500 to $1,000, and many policies carry a separate higher excess for storm or earth movement. Now add the premium effect. A claim on your record typically lifts renewal premiums for several years, and on a coastal Geraldton property where wind and storm exposure is already priced in, that lift is not trivial. Run the arithmetic before you lodge: repair cost, minus excess, minus the extra premium you will pay over the next few renewals. A $1,600 lift and relay against a $750 excess is not a claim worth making.

The assessor and the scope of works

For anything beyond a small figure, the insurer sends a loss assessor or a builder acting as one. They attend, photograph, often lift a paver or two, and write a scope of works: the itemised list of what will be repaired and at what rates. That document is the claim. If it is written short, you are settled short, so read it before you accept it. The three things most often missing from a paving scope are base repair under the damaged area, reinstatement of edge restraint, and drainage rectification. Relaying pavers over an unrepaired base looks finished and fails again inside two years.

The General Insurance Code of Practice sets the service standards the insurer has signed up to, including deciding a claim promptly once it has all the information it needs and keeping you updated while it is open. If you disagree with a decision, ask for it in writing with the reason and the policy wording relied on, use the insurer internal dispute resolution process first, and then take it to the Australian Financial Complaints Authority, which is free for consumers.

Cash settlement or insurer-managed repair: the trap in each.

If the claim is accepted you will usually be offered a choice. Both options have a real downside and the right answer depends on the job.

Cash settlement. The insurer pays you a figure and you organise the work. You choose the contractor and the materials, which genuinely matters in Geraldton where matching an existing limestone or a discontinued clay paver decides whether the repair looks like a patch. The trap is that the settlement is calculated at the insurer contractor rates, which are usually below what an independent local contractor charges, and once you have signed, every surprise found under the pavement is yours. Get two independent written quotes before you accept, and price the whole repair including base and drainage, not just the visible surface.

Insurer-managed repair. The insurer appoints its own builder, carries the price risk and warrants the workmanship for a stated period. The trap is control: you get their contractor, their material substitutions and their timeline, and in a regional market like the Mid West that can mean waiting for a crew to be in town. Colour and texture matching is the usual disappointment. If you go this way, put your material expectations in writing before work starts, and ask for the warranty terms in writing rather than as a verbal assurance.

A practical middle path exists: accept the insurer-managed repair for the structural work and pay privately to upgrade the finish, for example paying the difference to run the new paving right through rather than stopping at the claim boundary. That often produces a better result than either pure option, and it is worth asking about because it is rarely offered.

The honest advice: most paving damage is not a claim.

We write insurance scopes regularly and we decline to write them just as often, because the damage in front of us is plainly gradual and putting it to an insurer as an event would be dishonest and would not survive the assessment anyway. If your joints are empty, your pavers are rocking and there is a shallow dish in the wheel track, that is the classic Geraldton wind-scour and base-migration sequence, not a storm. The re-sand is $15 to $35 per square metre and the localised lift and relay is $45 to $80 per square metre. Both are cheaper than your excess.

Where a claim genuinely is the right move: a vehicle through a wall, a mature tree down across a driveway, a burst water main that washed out the bedding, a pool line failure that hollowed the surround, or a wall that let go during a defined storm event with photographs to prove the sequence. In those cases the numbers are large enough that the excess and the premium loading are worth wearing, and the evidence supports the story.

One more thing worth knowing before you rebuild anything. In the City of Greater Geraldton, a retaining wall over 500mm high or one carrying a surcharge such as a driveway needs a building permit and an engineer’s design under the WA building legislation, and an insurer will not pay for approvals it was not told about. The process is set out on the retaining wall permit page. If the wall is moving right now, work through the first-hour steps on the emergency page before you lodge anything. If the property is tenanted, the repair timeframes and who pays are on the rental repairs page, and the simplest way to keep future claims out of the gradual-damage bucket is the maintenance schedule.

Get a price

Get an itemised repair scope for your claim

Send the details and we will attend, measure, and issue an itemised scope with quantities, rates and a plain causation note, normally within one business day of the site visit.

Insurance questions we get asked.

Does home insurance cover retaining walls in WA?

Many Australian home policies exclude retaining walls completely, and most of the rest cover them only when a listed event such as a storm, a vehicle impact or an escape of liquid caused the damage. Almost none will pay for a wall that has slowly rotated because its drainage silted up, because that is treated as gradual damage or lack of maintenance. Read the other structures section of your product disclosure statement before you spend anything, and budget $350 to $650 per square metre of wall face if you end up paying yourself.

Is storm damage to a paved driveway covered?

Sudden damage from a listed event is usually covered, so a tree dropped across the paving, a vehicle impact or a burst water service that washed the bedding sand out generally gets paid. What is almost always excluded is water running across the ground, gradual settlement and washout from a soakwell that was already failing. The distinction the assessor is testing is whether the damage happened in one identifiable moment or over several seasons.

What is a make-safe and who pays for it?

A make-safe is the minimum work needed to stop the damage getting worse and to remove the danger, such as barricading a failing wall, tarping exposed soil or fencing a void in a driveway. Insurers routinely authorise a make-safe before the assessor attends and pay it as part of the claim, typically $600 to $1,800 for paving and retaining work. Get the authorisation number in writing first, because if the claim is later declined an unauthorised make-safe is yours to pay.

Cash settlement or insurer-managed repair: which is better?

A cash settlement gives you control of who does the work and what materials go in, which matters in Geraldton where matching weathered limestone is difficult, but it is calculated at the insurer rates and any shortfall or scope creep is yours. An insurer-managed repair carries the insurer warranty on the workmanship and removes the price risk, but you lose most of the say over materials and timing. If you take cash, get 2 independent written quotes first so you know whether the offer is 20 per cent short before you sign.

When is it not worth claiming on paving damage?

If the repair is under about $2,000 and your excess is $500 to $1,000, a claim usually costs you more than it returns once the premium loading over the following years is counted. A re-sand at $15 to $35 per square metre or a small lift and relay at $350 to $900 is nearly always cheaper paid directly. Claims history also follows you, so save the claim for the event that genuinely needs it.

What will an insurer ask my paving contractor to supply?

Expect a request for an itemised scope of works with quantities and rates rather than a single lump sum, dated photographs, an ABN and a current certificate of public liability insurance. Most assessors also want a plain causation statement saying what failed, whether it happened suddenly and what portion of the damage is pre-existing wear. A scope that separates the event damage from the 8 metres of tired paving next to it is far more likely to be accepted without argument.

Home insurance and paving damage in WA: what is covered, what is not.