Flood-hit communities in Queensland have aired their frustrations for the second day running as a federal inquiry into insurers’ handling of the 2022 catastrophes enters its final stages.

The meeting today in Logan was the second of three public hearings held this week by the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Economics.

Committee Chairman Daniel Mulino says more hearings with community groups will follow in coming weeks in Far North Queensland and Tasmania. Next week the inquiry will hear from communities in Victoria, with sessions scheduled in Maribyrnong on April 17, Rochester on April 18 and Heathcote on April 19. A report is due by September 30.

Mr Mulino says hearing first-hand from affected communities is “valuable for the committee” and will “add a great deal of depth and nuance to the evidence that we are receiving”.

Today the committee heard how the use of insurance jargon such as SOW – or scope of works – added to the anxiety of residents who were already struggling to navigate complex claims processes.

“The jargon used by insurers can be confusing for everyday people,” Community Plus+ Community Resilience Co-ordinator Melinda McInturff said. 

“What is SOW? ... use language that people understand. The other person on the other end of the phone has got to understand that they don’t know what a SOW is.

“Don’t use words that people don’t understand.”

Issues such as low cash settlement offers and the use of expert reports to determine losses – which were raised in earlier hearings with insurers, regulators and consumer advocacy groups – were revisited today.

Ms McInturff says some residents have been “pressured to make decisions quickly” on whether to accept their insurers’ cash settlement offers.

“We had one family who were told if they didn’t take the $50,000 for their insurance for their contents, they would have to find receipts for every item they were claiming,” she said. “This is at a time two weeks after the event when most people didn’t even know where their clothes were, let alone where the receipts were.”

She says in some cases, insurance companies were “lowballing” residents who had no idea what it cost to repair a flood-damaged property.

Repeatedly sending different assessors and other experts to a site adds more delays to the claims outcome, she says.

“Insurance companies do prolong that [claims] journey by ... lowballing figures, coming back with, ‘No we won’t pay for that, we will pay for that.’ Sending contractors, assessors out all the time ... different people ... that just confuses them a little more.”

Tenants Queensland Flood Recovery Solicitor Emma Webster says the insurance industry needs to provide products that protect renters and support landlords’ repair processes, so tenants have a roof over their head after a disaster.

She has seen cases in which tenants are at a “significant disadvantage” because they are not entitled to alternative accommodation under the insurance policies taken out by their landlords.

“Overall, we need the insurance industry to take the tenants’ position into account and recognise that tenants are significantly disadvantaged within the current insurance system,” she said.

Insurers’ apparent failure to provide adequate support to vulnerable customers was also raised today.

Ms McInturff referred to a domestic violence victim who reached out to her insurer for support. She called on March 27 and has yet to hear back.

“So if that’s a priority [to help vulnerable customers], that’s a long time for someone who is in a domestic violence situation, and domestic violence increases after a major disaster because there’s a financial stress ... it adds stress to families,” she said.