The insurance industry has been lashed by a parliamentary committee for badly treating policyholders devastated by floods across four states in 2022. It has been ordered to improve the management of claims, develop uniform guidance on how Australians should respond to a flood and what is covered, and allow victims to stay in temporary accommodation for longer.

The 2022 floods in Queensland, NSW, Victoria and Tasmania led to more than 300,000 insurance claims that triggered $7.7 billion in losses for insurers, including IAG, QBE and Suncorp. The House Standing Committee on Economics chastised insurance companies on Friday for “poor treatment and a range of systemic problems”.