Nearly six months on and Bay of Plenty residents are still counting the mounting costs of April's torrential floods, which left the region waterlogged.

This week the Insurance Council of New Zealand announced the Bay of Plenty region recorded insured costs of $11.5million, contributing to a total $46.2m claimed from the weather event.

A total of $7.3million of the damage was done to residential properties, $2.4m to commercial buildings and $810,000 to motor vehicles. In the Bay alone, more than 1000 insurance claims were made.

But some residents, including Westhaven Motel manager Peter Matthews, are still counting the costs of the sodden aftermath.

Peter says the family owned business in Pilot Bay does not have a finalised insurance figure because they are still working through repairing the substantial flood damage – but estimates it to be thousands.

Torrential rain in the early hours of Saturday, April 20 caused significant flash flooding across the Mount Maunganui and Papamoa areas, submerging cars and parts of houses.

At the time of the flooding, Metservice radars recorded 112 millimetres of rain at Tauranga Airport, while 43.6 millimetres was recorded in the Kaimai Ranges in a 12 hour period overnight.

During the heavy floods the harbourside motel's bottom seven units were submerged in six to eight inches of water destroying most of the low lying interior including Rimu skirting, underlay and carpet and a number of beds.

Since then, the family owned business have been scrambling around to renovate and replace the units while juggling insurance claims and their hospitality business in what has been a slow process.

'Two days earlier we replaced the lawn with new top soil and grass seed and it went all through the lino and the carpet. Since then we have just been doing it steady as we go,” says Peter.

As a result, the motel has been transformed into a construction zone with builders, painters and carpet layers frequently coming and going when a free time slot is available to continue business' forced makeover.

Peter says the Rimu skirting has been ripped up and replaced Pine, the underlay and carpet is a work in progress and each unit is getting a coat of white paint including the stained Rimu doors – much to his displeasure.

'I think we got away pretty well and our insurance company is very good. We have done a lot of the work ourselves and the insurance companies like to see you being proactive rather than just putting in a large claim for furniture.”