Flood Report

The experience of Hawkesbury residents impacted by flooding has helped shape the recommendations of the final report of the Parliamentary Inquiry into the insurance issues of the 2022 floods, including the affordability and availability of flood insurance.

I was specially brought onto the Economics Committee at the start of this 13-month inquiry because of the experience of our region. From navigating the process of making a claim after a flood to facing shocking increases in premiums or being told your insurer will no longer offer flood insurance, I knew that our region had important insights on what is working, and most importantly what isn’t working.

The final report: Flood Failure to Future Fairness quotes evidence that was shared by Hawkesbury residents at the Committee hearing in May.

There are 86 recommendations that cover a wide range of issues affecting the flood insurance industry. Some of the recommendations include things like:

• government intervention in the flood reinsurance market
• better buyback and home resilience upgrade schemes
• strengthening of the government’s response to floods
• making it easier for households and small businesses to get data about flooding that insurers and government have
• reviewing the fairness of disaster recovery programs for individuals, landowners and businesses
• setting higher standards for the insurers’ behaviour, and
• providing more support for people, like Legal Aid, to navigate the claims process

A number of the recommendations are on affordability and access to insurance as it’s becoming increasingly unaffordable for properties with the highest risk.

We want to see insurers explore more innovative products for homes and small businesses, and better ways for individual property mitigation to be rewarded by insurers with lower premiums.

We want to see state governments remove state-based taxes on general insurance products, and that insurers commit to passing these savings on in full through lower premiums.

And we’ve recommended the government look at the appropriateness of a governmentsupported reinsurance arrangement to make flood insurance more affordable.

The real message of the report, to every Parliamentarian and every government – local, state and federal – is that there is urgency to this problem.

It’s time to look at how the government can help people who have homes on the floodplain access insurance. But now is also the time to have hard conversations about buybacks, making individual homes safer and more resilient, and stopping new development on the floodplain. None of this can be done without working closely with the insurance industry.

What we don’t do now will cost taxpayers further down the track, undermine the Hawkesbury economy, and lead to heartbreak for the most flood-prone homeowners.