The Insurance Council of Australia (ICA) says it is working with Bundaberg Regional Council to ensure disaster mitigation work is reflected in residents’ premiums.

It comes after Bundaberg Deputy Mayor David Batt told the ABC that insurance companies are not taking account of work the regional council has carried out, despite industry promises to do so.

Cr Batt says the council completed “extensive” flood modelling around the Queensland town following ex-Tropical Cyclone Oswald, including drawing up specific information for each property.

“Insurance companies need to be able to reduce premiums where they can,” he told the ABC. “So there needs to be more pressure on these insurance companies.”

However, the problem seems to stem from a communications breakdown rather than industry recalcitrance.

ICA spokesman Campbell Fuller says Bundaberg council has not lodged its mitigation work with the industry’s National Flood Information Database (NFID), which forms the basis for setting premiums.

“ICA is working with Bundaberg council and hopes it will soon receive the latest flood data from the council for inclusion in the… database,” Mr Fuller told insuranceNEWS.com.au. “ICA has in the past several years undertaken a program in which it has proactively contacted councils whose ratepayers have flood exposure to seek whatever flood data councils may have for inclusion in the NFID.”

Mr Fuller says the database has current information from most flood-exposed local governments in Australia.

However, if any council feels premiums are out of line with completed mitigation and resilience projects, “we would be very pleased to have that dialogue”.

The insurance industry-funded NFID was developed with state and territory governments. In 2012 ICA launched the Flood Exclusion Zones database, which covers geographical areas where local government flood mapping is not available, to help insurers determine risk.

The two databases provide flood information for 10.4 million addresses nationally.