It’s a fact of public relations life that the bigger the population centre, the more intense and longer-lasting the media and political interest in a disaster will be. So it was with Brisbane, whose flood last month came at the peak of what is known in the media as the silly season.

It provided hundreds of hours of gripping televised drama and misery in equal measure. And the thousands of flood victims who discovered they weren’t insured against flood were a godsend to reporters under pressure to feed material to the 24-hour TV news mill.

Journalists tend to shed their professional detachment in large-scale disasters. In Brisbane they were backed by angry flood victims and self-serving politicians, and great was their wrath.

The insurance companies which don’t cover flood pretty much left it to the Insurance Council of Australia (ICA) to find its own way through the media and political maze. What there was of an initial response bore more resemblance to a rabbit caught in the headlights than a coherent defence of a rational position.

Late in the piece industry leaders like Munich Re CEO Heinrich Eder and new ICA President Rob Scott did wade in with useful support. But by then the reputational damage had been done.

Sadly, this whole horrible situation was predictable as long ago as September 4 2008 when the insurers, through ICA, found their much-debated “common definition of flood” – a document that would not be binding on them, anyway – knocked back by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC).

The council’s reaction was to take its bat and ball and go home, with a spokesman saying: “No further work will be undertaken on the standard definition at this time.”

In the context of February 2011, it’s obvious ICA should have heeded the advice of ACCC Chairman Graeme Samuel, who urged it to work with “consumer groups and other interested stakeholders” to find a more acceptable wording.

Today Financial Services Minister Bill Shorten wants a definition. Mandated by an irritated Federal Government determined to get its own way and a minister focused on a solution, that definition probably won’t be voluntary.

Lost in all the brouhaha may be the fact that no one except the insurers ever liked the original ICA flood definition much, anyway. It defined inland flood as “the inundation of water from a natural or manmade watercourse (such as a river, creek, canal or storm water channel) or water pool (such as a lake, pond or dam); water released from a dam; or water that cannot drain or run off due to water overflowing or escaping from an inland watercourse or water pool”.

The Australian Insurance Law Association called for more work on it; the Financial Ombudsman Service worried it created “a great deal of scope for creativity”; and the National Insurance Brokers Association and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission said it would probably lead to insurance companies reducing their flood coverage rather than extending it. Consumer groups maintained it had been formulated without consultation.

ICA’s argument about inadequate flood mapping sounded weak when some companies offer cover using their own risk assessments.

A more compassionate and politically acceptable tone could have been reached by emphasising the fact that governments and the Brisbane City Council allowed developers to build in flood-prone areas. Briefings for media and politicians should also have been prepared in advance.

The Australian general insurance industry has every reason to be proud of its performance following major catastrophes like Cyclone Larry and the Victorian bushfires. It tends to be a quiet achiever after big events, neither seeking nor receiving much official or media credit for employees’ swift and compassionate response to policyholders’ needs.

But when things go wrong – and it always seems to when the event involves floodwater –reputational damage to the industry’s good name is inevitable if ignorant criticism isn’t met with equally strong responses.

Flood cover is now a political and regulatory issue rather than solely an industry preoccupation. Hopefully it will lead to a wider understanding of the realities and a determination to fix the problem once and for all with a solution that’s acceptable to all stakeholders, including property-owners.