'Critical point': insurers fear next flood as La Nina looms

Insurers are “trepidatious” about what the upcoming summer holds as they continue to battle through more than 230,000 claims from the east coast flood catastrophe earlier in the year.

Insurance Council of Australia (ICA) CEO Andrew Hall told insuranceNEWS.com.au that average insurer rebuild times for the event have “blown out” to 14 months as insurers operate at “peak capacity” due to the number of claims and complications around supply chains and access to trades.

The Bureau of Meteorology says there is a 70% chance of a third consecutive La Nina developing this year, which would raise the likelihood of more floods.

Mr Hall, speaking as ICA released two major reports on natural catastrophes, says claims from smaller events that don’t get the headlines are adding to those from declared catastrophes.

“They’ve all been adding into the workload. The system is absolutely at capacity at the moment.

“Which is why we are in a critical point in the cycle. We’re about to move into the next spring/summer season with La Nina looming large.

“So it’s fair to say the industry is trepidatious around what’s coming and trying to plan for all that.

“The river systems are saturated. It won’t take much to cause another event, whether it is significant or catastrophic, somewhere around the east coast region and everyone is on high alert.”

The latest figures put the flood catastrophe as the second-worst natural disaster recorded in Australia, in relation to insured losses, with 233,000 claims valued at $5.28 billion. 44.1% of claims have been closed but 129,000 are still outstanding.

Mr Hall says it has been “a very complex recovery process” with average rebuild times extending to 14 months.

“We know we have to manage customer expectations and community expectations at the moment,” he said.

And while many of the complicating factors have been outside insurers’ control, he believes lessons are still being learned.

“Every event definitely delivers lessons to be heeded and systems [should be] adjusted accordingly,” he said.

“One of the things coming out of the flood event has been how do we work with governments around short-term accommodation.

“Governments have done things like secure a lot of temporary housing pods. A more innovative way of thinking is that perhaps those could have been located on people’s properties where the services like water and sewage are available, rather than trying to create whole mobile home villages for people to live in.

“Things like that can solve that demand on short-term accommodation and make sure that it’s freed up for everyone else that needs it, getting trades into the region.”

Mr Hall says technology could play a role in improving insurer communication with customers.

“I think technology is more and more the solution,” he said.

“Insurers have a bunch of obligations around how and when they communicate with customers and they are trying to meet them all.

“People are fairly anxious and they’re worried about when their rebuild will start.

“Sometimes it can be frustrating for a customer to get an update to tell them that there is still no update. It is about getting it right and it’s something I know a lot of insurers are investing a lot of time and effort into.”

Mr Hall adds that buy-back and build-back schemes in Queensland and NSW are adding to the complexity.

“Customers are wondering whether they can take advantage of the government schemes and whether that will change how they build the house back or whether they will sell to the government,” he said.

“There’s no point rebuilding a house if you know that the government potentially will buy it and demolish it, or you could gain a top-up grant to be able to lift it or something like that.

“I’m not criticising these programs because they all have the right intentions. But they are very big programs for governments to implement – they are huge and they are going to take some time.

“I think the problem is they are occurring almost independently of the ticking timeline that is occurring with insurers trying to close claims. There really is a tension that needs to be better managed.”

The reports released today by ICA sum up the impact of catastrophes in the past financial year, as well as repeating the industry’s message about increasing spending on resilience, better land use planning, and the need for reform on insurance taxes.

A study commissioned from leading think tank the McKell Institute shows that extreme weather events over the past 12 months cost every Australian household an average of $1532.

The Cost of Extreme Weather report also shows that over the past 10 years the average annual household cost of extreme weather has been $888, but this figure is expected to jump to more than $2500 a year by 2050.

Also released today is ICA’s second annual Insurance Catastrophe Resilience Report, which uses insurer data to review the last 12 months of extreme weather events and advocate for changes to reduce the impact of future events.

The reports show that since 2005, Commonwealth expenditure on disaster relief was $24 billion while spending on disaster resilience was just $500 million – or about 2% of all expenditure.

By 2050, Australian households will be paying $35.24 billion every year (in 2022 dollars) for the direct costs of extreme weather.

In the 2021/22, financial year insurers paid $6.41 billion from more than 380,000 claims across multiple events, which was $3.9 billion more than the previous 12 months.

The Catastrophe Resilience Report can be read here and the McKell report can be read here.