The flood gamble: pay up for insurance or risk everything

History shows when insurance prices become too high, governments can intervene, insurers can play hardball and some customers will just have to go without.

Liam Walsh and Tess Bennett

Mar 6, 2022 – 1.45pm

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Mayah and Sam Long are a young couple living in a small timber house and taking a calculated risk on flood insurance. It paid off by a few hundred millimetres last week.

“We’re so lucky,” Mr Long tells The Australian Financial Review. The couple are at their back window, looking out over brown floodwaters submerging nearby properties in Ipswich’s Goodna, about 35 minutes west of Brisbane. Only roofs of some homes are visible.

Liam Walsh writes on investigations and companies with The Australian Financial Review. He has won multiple media awards, worked in Japan and is now based in Brisbane.

Tess Bennett is a technology reporter with The Australian Financial Review, based in the Brisbane newsroom. She was previously the work & careers reporter.