Canberra’s bushfire insurance bill is estimated at $250 million, although some industry insiders suggest it may climb as high as $300 million. The bushfires destroyed more than 500 homes, and the Insurance Disaster Response Organisation said this makes it the eighth-worst natural disaster in Australia since 1967 and the second-worst bushfire disaster behind the 1983 Ash Wednesday fires.

Insurance Council of Australia (ICA) Executive Director Alan Mason said insurers have so far received about 2,500 claims. The fires swept through large parts of south-west Canberra, killing four people and leaving more than 300 injured. It’s the worst natural disaster ever to befall the national capital, although the total is a long way short of the Ash Wednesday bushfires which killed 72.

The bushfires may have faded from the front pages of the nation’s newspapers, but they’re still raging in remote parts of NSW and north-east Victoria. ICA Group Manager Southern Division Peter Jamvold said early estimates of the damage incurred in regional Victoria have reached $4 million. “There have been 80 claims so far for homes and things like farm buildings,” he said. “There have been very high stock losses, although we’re not yet sure of the numbers for insured losses.”

Residential mortgage insurer PMI Mortgage Insurance announced yesterday that it will offer its lenders a relief package to assist borrowers devastated by the ACT, NSW and Victoria fires.

The group will offer a six-month repayment “holiday” for people who have lost their homes through the fires, as well as for volunteer firefighters who took time off from their everyday jobs to help fight the fires. Those businesses whose income has been dramatically affected will also be eligible for assistance.