‘$13-15k a year’: Mayors demand action as Qlders cancel insurance

Queensland mayors are calling on the state and federal government to intervene amid a home insurance crisis that has seen premiums spike.

A group of Queensland mayors are calling on the state and federal government to intervene amid a home insurance crisis that has seen premiums spike despite a range of expensive disaster mitigation projects being put in place.

Queensland home and contents premiums are now among the highest in Australia, with some residents being forced to pay up to $15,000 for home insurance.

Latest data from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) found that people living in many Queensland communities, including Cairns, Townsville, Mackay and Logan, were now paying an average in excess of $2500 a year for combined home and contents insurance.

And the Australian Bureau of Statistics found people in Brisbane were also now paying 14.5 per cent more than they were a year ago.

Floods and natural disasters have shot insurance premiums sky-high.

The mayors from Logan, Balonne, Mackay and Maranoa shires have banded together in a coalition calling for more affordable and more available insurance that covers more homes.

Balonne Shire Council Mayor Samantha O’Toole said the premium increases that her region had experienced came despite a number of disaster levees being put in place.

“We’ve proven that our flood mitigation is working, but we’re still seeing the premium increases that are eye-wateringly high,” she said.

“It’s not unusual in St George at the moment to be paying insurance somewhere between $13,000-$15,000 a year to insure a three or four bedroom house,” she said.

“Some people are cancelling their insurance. If they can’t afford $15,000 a year, people are just cancelling insurance so they’re going uninsured.

“Some people if they can find a policy that does allow them to remove flooding, they’ll remove the flooding.”

Severe storms left many Queensland homes damaged over the summer of 2023-2024

Mackay Mayor Greg Williamson said escalating insurance premiums had been an ongoing issue for North Queensland residents and business owners for many years.

“Earlier this year Mackay council representatives met with strata title stakeholders who are concerned about their rising premiums and the prohibitive cost impacts,’’ Mayor Williamson said.

“Their rising premiums are adding to cost-of-living burdens in our region and affecting housing affordability at a time of a housing stock crisis.”

Mr Williamson said a federal government parliamentary inquiry into the issue of insurance premiums in North Queensland had resulted in the implementation of a reinsurance pool scheme for Australian insurers.

“The deadline for insurers to sign up has not yet passed, so we’re yet to see any benefits of that scheme,’’ Mr Williamson said.

An Insurance Council of Australia spokesman said Queensland was exposed to some of the most extreme weather in the country.

A house is seen surrounded by flood waters from the Mary River in the town of Tiaro, 198 kilometres north of Brisbane in January 2022.

“Unfortunately, wherever you live in Australia insurance premiums are rising because of the escalating costs of natural disasters, the growing value of our assets making them more costly to replace, inflation driving up building and vehicle repair costs, and insurers’ increasing cost of doing business,” he said.

“Logan, Mackay, Marano and Balonne LGAs all face very significant flood risk, only some of which has been mitigated.

He said insurers use the National Flood Information Database, a collation of local government flood maps, to assess flood risk at a property level.

“Logan Council has historically declined to provide its flood maps to the NFID, removing one of the tools insurers would use to assess flood risk,”he said.

“Providing this flood mapping to the NFID would add significantly to insurers’ ability to properly price premiums in that LGA.”

Originally published as ‘$13-15k a year’: Mayors demand action as Qlders cancel insurance