A Cairns mortgage broker wants a government-owned insurer to compete with private insurers, claiming they are cashing in on spiralling insurance premiums in north Queensland.

But the Insurance Council of Australia (ICA) says the costs are simply a reflection of the risk.

Roger Ward says he sees homeowners struggling to pay rapidly increasing premiums on a daily basis.

“Queenslanders have been singled out for some special treatment by the insurance industry, which has increased building insurance premiums, up to 800% in some cases,” he writes on petitions website change.org.

“These increases have been done under the guise that it’s a ‘means to recover costs’ from Cyclone Yasi and the Brisbane floods. However, as time goes by it’s evident it has less to do with costs and more to do with a marketing opportunity to increase premiums.

“The situation for consumers is further complicated by market failures that have led to an ever-decreasing pool of insurers.”

ICA says allegations of “gouging” have been repeatedly disproved, and that north Queensland residents are six times more likely to claim than those in other parts of the country.

Mr Ward has started a petition calling for the State Government Insurance Office – which ceased to exist in 1996 when it was folded into the Suncorp operation – to be recreated, “to offer a general insurance and strata property insurance product that is comparable with policy costs in other states”.

Mr Ward’s petition had almost 300 signatures at the time of publication.

His campaign flies in the face of the conclusions of the Northern Australia Insurance Premiums Taskforce which investigated potential solutions to high premiums. It made its final report in March last year.

The taskforce recommended mitigation programs and steered away from government intervention via a mutual or reinsurance pool.

The Federal Government has yet to respond to the report’s findings.