The Insurance Council of Australia (ICA) has declared Cyclone Ita a catastrophe for areas of north Queensland, meaning insurers will give priority to cyclone claims.

ICA opened its claims information hotline on the weekend as Ita struck Cooktown, and set up a taskforce to help co-ordinate the recovery process.

By this morning 510 claims had been lodged for estimated losses of $7.6 million, a spokesman told insuranceNEWS.com.au.

Although the Category 4 cyclone made landfall in an area of relatively low population on Friday night, it then moved down the coastline and caused power outages and flooding. Cairns is considered to have escaped with limited damage.

As news of the impending disaster reached US financial markets on Friday, speculators moved into the catastrophe bond market, making low offers for three bonds exposed to Australian cyclone risk.

Munich Re has two such bonds and QBE has one, although commentary from the markets says losses are unlikely to be triggered.

Catastrophe modeller AIR Worldwide says insured losses will be mitigated “to a great degree by the strength of the building codes in Queensland, by the sparse population in the vicinity of landfall and by the relatively small size of the storm”.

Eqecat says Ita brought winds estimated to exceed those of Cyclone Yasi, which caused extensive damage in 2011.

Yasi is the country’s most expensive cyclone in terms of insured losses, according to the Munich Re NatCatService. It cost $US1.44 billion ($1.53 billion), followed by Cyclone Larry in 2006 at $US450 million ($478.91 million).

Ita is the second catastrophe declared this year, following the summer bushfires in WA.