The Hazards Insurance Partnership comprising government and industry organisations will broaden its membership and add reinsurance representatives. 

The partnership this month held its seventh meeting since it was established by the Albanese government to improve resilience and seek measures to improve insurance affordability and availability. 

It agreed to expand its membership to an additional insurer and two major reinsurers, while the Australian Reinsurance Pool Corporation will be added as an observer.  

A communique says the additions reflect the evolution of the partnership and the need to ensure it hears from all parts of the insurance sector. 

Members discussed opportunities to ensure government and household disaster risk reduction investments translate to downwards premium pressure, and the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) provided an update on development of a database to better understand coverage issues. 

The partnership agreed to proceed with collecting aggregated and non-identifiable data to generate a national picture of insurance affordability and coverage by August. This will come from the Insurance Council of Australia’s policy-in-force data. 

“Concurrently, privacy and other relevant assessments are under way to ensure the appropriate treatment of policy-in-force insurance data as it is transferred securely from insurers into the ABS environment to build the enduring data asset,” it says. 

The National Emergency Management Agency is developing an online toolkit to support increased community and household awareness of natural hazard risks, encouraging action to prepare for and mitigate against threats. 

The partnership meeting was chaired by National Emergency Management Agency co-ordinator general Brendan Moon. The Insurance Council of Australia, IAG, Suncorp, QBE, Allianz and RACQ are involved from industry, while Treasury, the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, the Australian Climate Service and the ABS are also represented. 

Observers attended from the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority, Australian Securities and Investments Commission and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.