As insurers work through 35,000 claims from the summer’s bushfire catastrophe, some key trends are emerging.

Insurance Council of Australia (ICA) Head of Risk and Operations Karl Sullivan says these could be “instructive in terms of planning and resilience”.

Writing on LinkedIn, Mr Sullivan says 74% of damaged/destroyed buildings were built before 2009 when more stringent building standards were introduced.

He also notes the median claim for pre-2009 buildings is 1.4 times higher than new stock, indicating that older stock is more vulnerable to loss, and more expensive to repair or rebuild.

“New buildings are safer for our customers, less likely to suffer damage and often a better underwriting risk,” he writes.

Mr Sullivan says 99% of losses were on, or within 500m, of land declared as bushfire prone for building design purposes.

“Planners must continue to take into account hazard overlays produced by relevant agencies,” he said.

“With the exception of Victoria, all state governments make mapping available to assist with good decisions.”

Insured losses have now hit $2.26 billion, making the catastrophe one of the worst bushfires on record.

Only 1983’s Ash Wednesday has a greater loss figure, at $2.3 billion under normalised dollars.

According to ICA data 81% of last summer’s losses took place in NSW, with 8% in Victoria, 8% in SA and 3% in Queensland.