Insurance losses from Australia’s 2019-20 natural disaster season – the country’s worst natural disaster season on record – now total $5.94 billion from 315,638 claims, the Insurance Council of Australia (ICA) says.

The council released the updated figures after the Royal Commission into National Natural Disaster Arrangements published its final findings on Friday.

Insurers have welcomed the report’s strong themes of resilience, mitigation and disaster planning.

The 80 recommendations will help ensure the nation is as well prepared as possible for the impact of natural disasters, new IAG MD and CEO Nick Hawkins said.

“The royal commission has provided an important opportunity to reflect on the catastrophic events of last summer and put in place the necessary reforms to help ensure we’re doing everything we can to limit the scale of destruction and tragedy in future bushfire seasons,” he says in a statement.

“We welcome the Commonwealth Government’s commitment to reviewing and actioning many of these recommendations as soon as possible.”

ICA says the almost $6 billion of losses in the latest natural hazard season consists of $2.32 billion from bushfires in NSW, Victoria, SA and Queensland; $504 million from November hailstorms in south-east Queensland; $1.65 billion from January’s hailstorms in the ACT,

Victoria and NSW; $963 million from February’s east coast storms and flooding; and $503 million from Rockhampton hailstorms.

Insurers have closed an average of 85% of household and motor natural disaster claims despite COVID-19 interruptions.

ICA has urged federal politicians to respond to the royal commission’s findings by making funding available for priority mitigation and resilience programs.

“The royal commission’s recommendations provide clear and urgent direction to governments and agencies on how they should work co-operatively to protect Australian communities from natural disasters,” ICA CEO Andrew Hall said.

“Without urgent action, hundreds of communities will remain vulnerable to the impact of cyclones, floods, tropical storms and bushfires.”

Mr Hall says government spending on projects to prevent or reduce the impact of natural disasters falls significantly short of the $400 million a year that the Productivity Commission recommended in 2014, “let alone the $3.5 billion a year that APRA has estimated will need to be spent”.

“Many communities need help now…to make sure they can withstand the changing risks caused by climate change.”

Proposals supported by ICA include:

• Establishing a national organisation dedicated to championing resilience across Australia to think broadly about all measures and plan and respond accordingly
• A clear role for governments to educate communities and provide accessible information to help them make informed decisions and take appropriate actions to manage disaster risk
• Greater Federal support for state disaster management
• Improvements in the availability and quality of data to help governments and other stakeholders understand and manage natural disaster risk
• Mandatory consideration of natural disaster risk in land-use planning decisions
• Guidance for insurer-recognised retrofitting and mitigation under which insurers would give consumers clear communication on individual-level natural hazard risk mitigation actions which will be recognised when setting policy premiums.

See the full report here.