Flooding victims ‘do not blame climate’

Just 11 per cent of people in flood-struck Brisbane, northern NSW and western Sydney blame climate change for soaring home insurance costs, a survey shows.

The streets of Woodburn, northern NSW, after the flood waters dropped. Home insurance premiums in flood-prone areas can cost more than four times the standard rate, saddling some householders with five-­figure bills. Picture: Jonathan Ng

Just 11 per cent of people in flood-struck Brisbane, northern NSW and western Sydney blame climate change for soaring home insurance costs, a survey shows.

This falls to 7 per cent in NSW’s devastated Northern Rivers district – where hundreds remain homeless in the city of Lismore – with insurer profits, government inaction and local government planning bungles seen as more responsible for making premiums there increasingly unaffordable.

In a let-off for Scott Morrison, only 11 per cent said Canberra carried the can for funding flood mitigation and measures to protect homes from the impact of extreme weather events.

Research completed last week for the Insurance Council of Australia found that nearly half of householders were un­insured for floods despite the destruction caused by the east coast “rain bomb” crisis, with 80 per cent convinced their properties were safe from going under.

The survey comes as NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet is due to appoint former state police chief Mick Fuller to lead an independent inquiry into his government’s handling of the floods. To be released on ­Monday, the poll of 1034 people living in affected regions provides a snapshot of what communities exposed to the floods expect from government and whether recriminations over the scale and speed of the ­disaster response will play into the federal election.

Some 22 per cent considered this primarily as a state responsibility; 51 per cent of respondents said both levels of government were accountable.

In addition to the 46 per cent who admitted having no insurance for flood damage, 12 per cent said they didn’t know whether they had coverage.

Fully 55 per cent of those surveyed online in the Northern Rivers district were not insured, followed by 41 per cent in Greater Brisbane and 51 per cent in western Sydney. The highest proportion of “don’t knows” was in western Sydney, where nearly 17 per cent were unable to say whether they had flood cover.

The findings reflect the mounting cost of home insurance in flood-prone areas such as Brisbane and Lismore – epicentres of last month’s disaster – where premiums can cost more than four times the standard rate, saddling some householders with five-­figure bills.

Insurers have received 150,774 flood-related claims across southeast Queensland and NSW, totalling an estimated $2.262bn, the ICA said. Damage to public infrastructure will add hundreds of millions to the tab.

In the Northern Rivers, more people were uninsured than insured against flood – a gap of 19 points over the 36 per cent who had cover. In Brisbane, 49 per cent had flood insurance against 41 per cent who didn’t.

While 47 per cent of respondents overall said a “high risk” of flooding was the main reason insurance was expensive or difficult to obtain, 22 per cent sheeted responsibility home to insurers’ profits. At 11 per cent, climate change was seen as only slightly more to blame than government inaction (10 per cent) and local government planning (9 per cent) for driving up premiums.

The breakdown in the Northern Rivers was even starker, where 13 per cent of respondents who held the local council culpable was nearly double that for climate change, with 9 per cent citing government inaction. In western Sydney, 12 per cent nominated climate change; in Greater Brisbane it was 11 per cent.

Across the three regions, 59 per cent said they had considered the flood risk when buying or renting a home. Only 49 per cent believed they had enough insurance to rebuild.

However, 94 per cent said there should be better controls on where homes were built to not be at risk of flooding. This was consistent across age, gender and locations in the poll, conducted by Kantar Australia for the ICA from March 11-14.

Two-thirds said governments at federal, state and local levels were not spending enough to protect homes and communities from floods and natural disasters. Of those in favour of more public investment, 91 per cent backed an election pitch by the $55bn-a-year insurance industry for federal and state spending on disaster prevention and mitigation to double to $2bn over the next five years.