The Insurance Council of Australia (ICA) says the February-March floods, which hit Queensland and NSW, are Australia’s most expensive natural disaster.  

The ICA released updated figures which showed total insured losses relating to the floods amounting to $5.65 billion, breaking the tie with the previous record holder, the 1999 Sydney hailstorm.   

The ICA says insurers have paid out around $3.59 billion to policyholders, with about 69% of the 237,470 flood claims closed.  

ICA CEO Andrew Hall says he is pleased to see that most claims have now been closed given the scale of damage and promised that “insurers are working around the clock to close out the remainder”.  

The figures come as ICA released new data showing insurance costs relating to storms and floods since 2020 – that have been declared as ‘Insurance Catastrophes’ or ‘Significant Events’ by the ICA – totalled $12.3 billion.   

Among the costliest events in the past three years were hailstorms in Queensland in 2020, two of which topped $1 billion in insured losses, as well as severe storms in Victoria and SA last year, which amounted to $875 million. 

Mr Hall says the data shows the importance of increased investment for climate resiliency, declaring that “we need stop building homes in harms’ way”.   

“We must not ignore what this data is telling us to do – invest in community-level mitigation, home retrofits, home buybacks in the most extreme cases, and better early warning systems,” Mr Hall said. 

See Analysis.