New analysis of Australia’s natural disasters shows the danger posed by cyclones to the nation’s east coast.
Cyclones that hit Queensland in 1967 and 1974 would rank among the nation’s top-10 costliest natural disasters, should they repeat in the same places today.
The analysis, for the Insurance Council of Australia, puts a modern value on these events by taking into account the number of homes that would be affected, as well as the cost of repairing them.
Barely-remembered events like 1967’s Cyclone Dinah would cause an estimated $6.19 billion in damage today, while 1974’s Cyclone Wanda would cause $5.26 billion in damage.
By comparison, the damage bill from the 2019/20 Black Summer bushfires across four states was $2.3 billion.
“When you look up and down the east coast and look at population today, if those cyclones were to happen today they would be very, very expensive,” says the insurance council’s Andrew Hall.
“It’s the coming together of increased population and whether people are living in safe, durable and insurable homes.
“In the last two years, we’ve had a cyclone hit north of Geraldton in WA, affecting a very small population – but if it hit on the same latitude on the east coast there would be a very different story.”
The Insurance Council is pushing for better planning to stop new developments in high-risk locations, and an expanded buy-back scheme to remove the riskiest homes.
The increased risk of cyclones and floods is a major reason why insurance premiums rose nearly 30 per cent in the past 12 months.
The median home and contents insurance premium across the country is now $1,894, but people living in flood-prone areas are being quoted prices of $32,000 a year.
The most expensive historical catastrophe, should it be repeated today, would be the 1999 Sydney hailstorm.
(ABC)
