New data released by the Insurance Council of Australia (ICA) today shows that the impact of extreme weather on the Australian economy has more than tripled over the last three decades.
Insured losses from declared insurance catastrophes have grown from 0.2 of GDP from 1995 to 2000 to 0.7 per cent for the last five years, meaning extreme weather losses are consuming more and more of our economic resources.*
In monetary terms, over the last 30 years insurers paid an average of $2.1 billion per year to customers impacted by extreme weather events, but looking at just the last five years the average annual cost of extreme weather claims has more than doubled to $4.5 billion, driven largely by the growing cost of flood.**
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