Insurers and research groups have rejected the Productivity Commission’s claim that the country does not need a national platform to collect natural hazard data.

The Insurance Council of Australia (ICA) says it is wrong to suggest there is “no compelling case” for national co-ordination of information, while Munich Re has asked the commission to reconsider.

Geoscience Australia says the current platform cannot cope with the extra demand that would arise under the commission’s recommendation for more mitigation funding.

The industry responses follow the commission’s draft report on natural disaster funding arrangements.

While many groups agree that more funds should go to preventing loss rather than recovery, they reject the commission’s findings on how money should be distributed.

Research group Risk Frontiers says funding should be based on risk rather than per capita.

The draft report calls for states and territories to match a proposed $200 million a year of funding for mitigation, but ICA says money should be allocated on a project-by-project basis.

It says the commission does not give enough weight to national efforts to co-ordinate information and disaster prevention.

If price signals from insurers could be more closely aligned with government data and programs to reduce exposures, everyone would better understand and adapt to risk, it says.

Greater progress could be made if states and territories published information through a portal accessible to the public, planning departments and emergency services.

ICA supports recommendations on state governments doing more to consider risk in land use planning. It says the commission “may have undervalued the impact that building and development controls can have on reducing vulnerability in the built environment”.

Risk Frontiers says without more disclosure “the only way homeowners will learn about their risk is indirectly via insurance premiums that are increasingly risk-informed”.

“It is not only local councils that withhold data,” it says. “The Bureau of Meteorology sits on river gauge data, the release of which would be a great impetus to flood modelling.”

Geoscience Australia says the commission’s recommendations, if adopted, will increase demand for a national, consistent, high-quality information base to aid decisions on mitigation.

It wants a governance framework developed to co-ordinate approaches around quality, standards, integrity, reliability, accessibility and infrastructure, with the private sector and all levels of government contributing.

The commission asked for information on sum-insured and total replacement cover.

ICA says adopting total replacement policies across the industry would reduce consumer choice and increase premiums.

It says total replacement cover is available, although not widely because it transfers the risk of underinsurance to the insurer, and consumers should have a choice of what insurance to buy.