An insurance catastrophe has been declared for parts of WA from cyclone Seroja, escalating the industry’s priority to process claims as recovery efforts get underway.

The Insurance Council of Australia (ICA) issued the catastrophe declaration today, its third of the year after the Perth Hills bushfires in February and floods in NSW and south-east Queensland late last month.

Insurers have so far received more than 700 claims for Seroja-related damage but no loss estimates are available as severely impacted areas remain inaccessible.

“[Tropical cyclone] Seroja has severely damaged homes, businesses, telecommunications, and road infrastructure as well as the electricity service, across a number of [WA] communities,” ICA CEO Andrew Hall said.

“Access to areas north of Geraldton is limited, so it is too early to understand the extent of the damage to property in the affected region.

“The ICA expects a substantial increase in claims as soon as telecommunications and power is restored in coming days to affected areas.

“Importantly, this event has impacted a region not normally affected by cyclones, and the destruction of the built environment is severe.”

The catastrophe declaration comes as the devastation inflicted by Seroja, which made landfall on Sunday evening as a category 3 storm, is starting to emerge.

Reports from national broadcaster ABC News say about 70% of buildings in Kalbarri, a coastal town with a population of about 1300, are damaged as Seroja slammed into the state’s Mid West coast with winds of up to 170 km/hour.

Northampton and Geraldton also saw significant damage and many areas are without power, which is expected to take some time to restore.

Federal Emergency Services Minister David Littleproud says the Federal Government wants “clarity from the insurance industry about their support and their contractual arrangements with those policyholders, being household and small businesses”.

“The Federal Government is working as close as we can, not only with the WA government, but with industry, to make sure that whatever support is required is provided,” he was quoted as saying by ABC News.

Meanwhile James Cook University Professor of Physical Geography Jonathan Nott has warned Seroja “may be a timely wake-up call” for Australia and its approach to mitigating the impact of future cyclones.

“It appears to be one of the more intense tropical cyclones to make landfall that far south on the western Australian coast,” Professor Nott told insuranceNEWS.com.au. “It’s just highlighting that these things can occur.

“We can’t say specifically climate change is responsible for this cyclone. All that we can say is that with climate change, we can expect to see more of these sorts of events in the future.

“It may be the case that we are going to see more of this sort of damage in the future so obviously that has big implications for insurance.

“It also has implications for the engineering of dwellings too and whether we might start talking about the possibility of extending the wind zones, the wind areas further south.”

According to Professor Nott, who specialises in reconstructing long-term natural records of extreme events, cyclones with intensity similar to that of Seroja rarely made it this far south of WA.

Records show this has only happened 26 times in the past 5000 years.

“Unfortunately, climate change is likely to mean disasters such as Cyclone Seroja will become more intense, and will be seen further south in Australia more often,” Professor Nott said. “In this regard, Seroja may be a timely wake-up call.”