Southlanders have lodged $47m in insurance claims since September’s devastating snow storms.

The Insurance Council of New Zealand has taken 726 property claims so far, amounting to $36m, and 4000 domestic claims totalling $7m.

Council chief executive Terry Jordan says the one thing missing from claims is stock losses, which aren’t covered by insurance.

“There will be a number of places that weren’t insured that will be damaged. A lot of the stock losses, of course, will be uninsured."

"It was heartbreaking to see those images of the dead lambs down there, it must have hit the community down there so hard.”

Federated Farmers agrees the insurance bill is a misleading figure, and the true cost of the storm will run into the hundreds of millions.

“We’re sort of thinking, it’s still very rough at the moment, it’s sort of a $500-800m loss to the region in stock and milk losses."

Rod Pemberton says insurance payouts may not be enough to save some farms.

"I know there’s one or two who are thinking of swapping to dairying on the back of several years of poor returns anyway.

"I know some of the banks are taking a wait and see approach, farmers should be getting all their figures together before they actually go and approach their banks.”