As thousands of property owners queue up for their insurance claims, the Insurance Council of Australia has revealed some startling figures.

"To date [May 28] we have received 68,243 claims, which amounts to $301 million in losses, during the April storms for NSW," a spokeswoman said. However, she said figures for Port Stephens were not available.

Paterson MP Bob Baldwin said the federal government had granted a total of 58,488 disaster recovery payment [DRP] claims totalling $71,916,200 and 429 disaster recovery allowance [DRA] claims.

"In Port Stephens alone, there have been 15,045 claims totalling $18,619,200," he said.

Mr Baldwin has also warned that anyone making false claims to receive emergency funds would be held to account.

Port Stephens Council staff, it has been revealed, were run off their feet, fielding an average of 650 - and climbing up to 1000 - calls per day to its customer relations team.

A council spokeswoman said that the total clean-up bill was in the vicinity of $6 million, with asset damage approximately $12 million.

"Council has collected 14,000 tonnes of storm waste and devoted 9600 staff hours to this single event," the spokeswoman said.

Hunter Water was also kept busy, as more than 27 billion litres of water entered Grahamstown Dam.

"During a normal day Grahamstown Dam supplies around 50 per cent of the Hunter's water supply, however for a two-and-a-half week period after the April 21 storm, the Hunter was completely reliant on Grahamstown Dam because Chichester Dam was offline due to storm damage to the trunk main," spokesman Jeremy Bath said.

"Given the region's reliance on Grahamstown, Hunter Water took additional measures to ensure the water remained safe to drink.

"This included increasing the chlorine and coagulant dosing, which had the consequence of producing a safe but noticeable taste and smell for some people. Hunter Water also started hourly sampling of the raw and treated water, which cost more than $200,000."