The Insurance Council of Australia (ICA) has said that homes could be made more resilient if federal funding was doubled to AUS $200m a year and matched by the states and territories.
Released in its policy platform for the forthcoming federal elections, the ICA’s Building a More Resilient Australia advocates an increasing funding over five years to AUS $2bn. The platform also contains six measures that the ICA said it had developed in consultation with actuarial firm Finity.
These include:
- AUS $522m for local projects such as flood levees to defend regional towns
- AUS $413m to better protect homes against flood, Australia’s most expensive natural peril, by raising utilities and services above the expected flood line
- AUS $221m to cyclone-proof more than 44,000 homes in northern Australia
- AUS $712m to support the selective reduction of fuel in our forests
- AUS $37m for an improved national flood early warning system, estimated to increase the lead time for flood warnings from 3-5 to 10-15 days
- AUS $10m to establish a national coastal hazard information database
The ICA is also calling for several further measures, including a review of land use planning arrangements, a strengthening of national building codes, and the abolition of duties, levies, and taxes on insurance products.
The pronouncements today by the ICA follow the organisation’s work in December that stated homes Down Under were not resilient to tropical cyclone hazards, which are expected to become more severe due to climate change. The ICA’s work at the time reported that the insurance claims cost for tropical cyclones since 1967 stands at $23 billion, and Cyclone Tracey remains Australia’s costliest natural disaster with a $5.5 billion insurance bill (figs normalised to 2017 values).
Andrew Hall, CEO of the ICA, said in a statement: “Insurers are at the frontline when it comes to climate change and extreme weather, that’s why as an industry we’re so focused on improving community resilience. In the face of worsening extreme weather the next Australian Government must boost investment in stronger homes and local infrastructure that makes communities safer and more resilient.”
He added: “This means subsidies to improve the resilience of the nation’s homes and businesses to cyclone, flood, and bushfire, as well as funding for projects that protect the community, like levees, floodways, and fuel reduction. Without this increased funding, coupled with a change in approach to what we build and where we build it, the risk profile of communities exposed to extreme weather will not change.”
