The Insurance Council of Australia’s (ICA) updated natural hazards assessment tool is generating high demand online, with enhancements making it more user-friendly and improving data quality.

GM Risk and Disaster Planning Karl Sullivan says the Natural Hazard Data for General Insurance Advocates program receives more than 1200 unique hits a week and sometimes exceeds 1000 a day.

“The language has been simplified – it’s less actuarial – and the hazard information for each land parcel is more comprehensive,” he told insuranceNEWS.com.au.

“Where version 5.0 contained 5.1 gigabytes of data, version 6.0 is more than 10 times that size.”

Property-level information includes exposure to floods, bushfires, storms, storm tides and cyclones.

It is designed for insurance professionals or industry advocates to explain natural hazard risks to people outside the industry, such as members of the public or politicians.

It is designed for mobile or tablet use.

“The program will continue to evolve as new, improved data becomes available,” Mr Sullivan said.

“There are many parts of Australia where natural hazard data is still very limited or not available, and I often receive suggestions on how the tool can be improved.

“No data set is ever perfect – it can always be fine-tuned.”

The tool can be accessed here.