PERILS’ Final Report Shows A$6.5bn Loss from Australia’s 2022 Floods

PERILS' Final Report Shows A$6.5bn Loss from Australia's 2022 Floods

PERILS, a provider of catastrophe insurance data, has released its final report on the insurance industry losses for the February-March 2022 Eastern Australia floods. The report shows that the final insurance market loss estimate is A$6,527 million, which is up from the initial estimate of A$6,292 million that PERILS released on September 13, 2022. The losses were divided into motor and property lines of business, which accounted for 9.5% and 90.5% of the total industry loss, respectively. The report provides a comprehensive breakdown of motor and property losses by postcode, divided into residential and commercial lines, with loss amounts split into buildings, contents, and business interruption losses where available.

The Eastern Australia floods, which occurred from February 20 to March 11, 2022, caused major river-and-surface-water flooding in Southeast Queensland (QLD), the north-eastern tip of New South Wales (NSW), and the NSW Central Coast, including the surrounding areas of metropolitan Sydney. The event is Australia’s costliest flood and one of the world’s worst losses outside the US in 2022.

Darryl Pidcock, head of PERILS Asia-Pacific, said the detailed loss and industry exposure data aims to contribute to industry efforts to manage flood risk and boost the resilience of the Australian economy and society to natural catastrophes. PERILS CEO Luzi Hitz emphasized the importance of reliable, systematic data in effective risk assessment and stated that every catastrophic event further elevates PERILS’ value proposition. The report was complemented by postcode-level rain accumulation data from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology.

Persistent La Nina conditions have caused several major storm and flood events in the last three summers on the East Coast of Australia. Although current forecasts indicate that La Nina will weaken to more normal levels, it has caused the largest industry event loss in Australian history. Despite the challenges faced by insurance partners in dealing with these events, they continue to support PERILS’ efforts.

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