Suncorp subsidiary GIO has been forced to defend its flood insurance policy after a NSW woman took the story of her rising premium to a local newspaper.

Lismore’s Northern Star reported Judy Weston’s home and contents insurance premium increased from $420 to $1400 despite her home not being at risk of flood.

GIO Executive Manager for Home Insurance Dennis O’Brien says the insurer has found a problem with less than 1% of its policyholders’ flood risk ratings, and Ms Weston’s was one of them.

“In this particular case our records show we were sure it was a flood risk,” he told insuranceNEWS.com.au. “We’ve been pricing for flood and covering flood for 12 months and we are now sending out renewals, and so far any problems we’ve had have been few and far between.”

Mr O’Brien has apologised to Ms Weston and checked to ensure the premium is correct for other customers in her street. But he says it is not just GIO’s new flood cover that causes premium to rise.

“People challenge us on cyclone and burglary risk,” he said. “Sometimes it’s just to do with a fire services levy change or it might be that reinsurance costs are going up. And there have been a lot of storms lately so we have got to start pricing for storm, not just flood.”

He says the newspaper article appeared “right in the middle of us having over 4000 storm and flood claims in south-east Queensland and north-east NSW”.

“We had received 1000 claims in one week. You could write a million articles about someone’s premium being increased.”