The Australian government has announced that meeting its own recommendations for disaster insurance in the wake of the floods in Queensland early last year. The floods that hit the region last year cost thousands of people their homes and put an end to several businesses. There are still scores of people struggling to rebuild, nearly a year after the catastrophe. When flood waters came in, the nation’s insurers were quickly overwhelmed in terms of claims and insured losses. The government had to step in, but it too struggled to mitigate…
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Suncorp reveals how much they paid on Australia and New Zealand disasters this year
Earlier this year, Australia and New Zealand faced an onslaught of natural disasters that put strain on the two nation’s top insurer: Suncorp. Several estimates have been made as to how much the disasters cost the company, but Suncorp had not released any official statement regarding the issue. Yesterday, however, their silence was broken as the company hopes to improve its relationship with several reinsurance company in an effort to increase its profits for the 2011-12 fiscal year. According to Suncorp, the two devastating earthquakes that rocked New Zealand –…
Read MoreQueensland flood insurance investigation reveals that nature wasn’t the only culprit
According to experts that were hired by insurance companies to do a further check into the damages that occured during the Queensland floods, found that the Wivenhoe Dam was a contributing factor. The owner of NRMA and CGU, Insurance Australia Group reported in detail how the water that was released from Wivenhoe including the heavy and continuous rainfall contributed to the flooding of the homes and businesses in the said Australia state. However, it was not reported how much of the damage can be blamed on Wivenhoe during the flood that…
Read MoreForced place insurance for businesses in Austrailia
In light of the recent disasters befalling the nation, the Australian government may be setting up an inquiry to determine whether states should be forced to purchase commercial insurance policies to cover natural disasters. Legislators are currently pushing to pass a $1.8 billion deal that would help reconstruct levees. The possibility of an inquiry was raised when Treasurer Wayne Swan suggested that there “legitimate questions” about what states had done regarding insurance. Swan said that “it is probably timely for us to evaluate all of those questions, to have a…
Read MoreAustralia looking at insurance premium increases
Many predict insurance rates to increase in upcoming years for Australians due to a relentless wave of natural disasters thrashing the countryside. How much of an increase is hard to say, analysts and insurance companies are calculating the total financial loss from the Queensland flood and Cyclone Yasi, and will adjust accordingly. Wild figures being thrown out of 30% rate increases have been talked down by Patrick Snowball, chief executive of the Suncorp Insurance Group, the largest insurer of Australia. Stating it’s still too early to tell but insurance companies…
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