As the hail, rain and winds battering Australia’s eastern states moved through NSW and Queensland, South Australia and Victoria assessed the damage. On Friday, the Insurance Council of Australia (ICA) declared an insurance catastrophe for parts of South Australia and said the rising claims count in that state alone stood at more than 12,000.
“It’s pretty widespread [the storm damage], anywhere from the northern suburbs of Adelaide extending into the Northern Hills part up to the Barossa Valley,” said Gavin Goedecke (pictured), a broker in Hahndorf with Adelaide Hills Insurance Brokers, part of the Websters Group.
He said for Adelaide, this was an unusually severe hailstorm.
“We get small hailstorms but nothing to what we experienced yesterday,” he said. “Cars, property, back verandas with their Laserlite clear sheeting [damaged], a few collapsed roofs under the weight of hail.”
He’s experienced worse in the eastern states.
“It’s a little bit new for Adelaide to experience something like this. Probably the last major hailstorm we had was, I think, was in about 1990 at West Lakes,” said Goedecke.
However, about an hour from Hahndorf, on the other side of Adelaide, he said the hailstorm has devastated glasshouses in the market garden town of Virginia.
“There’s a large fruit bowl area up there in Virginia,” he said. “I’ve just seen reports that they [the glasshouses] all smashed and of course you won’t get covered for hail for a glasshouse.”
The storm has also generated the most damage claims he’s seen for a long time, even surpassing the bushfires two years ago for numbers.
“This is higher in claims numbers [compared to the bushfires in 2019/20) but relatively more minor damage. So not too many cars with smashed windscreens so far so, thankfully - that means people can still drive their cars around, albeit in a dinged-up state.”
He said, anecdotally, he’s heard about people who’ve suffered damage to their property complaining about the wait times for submitting claims with direct insurers. One positive about these unfortunate circumstances, he suggested, is that they provide an opportunity for brokers to shine.
“So, this is where brokers come to the fore because we can take their calls immediately, take the details and then we’re the ones having to run around and do the chasing for all of our clients.”
Goedecke took the initiative and sent out an email to his clients in the impacted areas asking them to inspect their roofs, air conditioners and outdoor sheds for damage.
“You know 12 months or two years down the track where someone goes, ‘Oh, by the way I think I have hail damage from two years ago.’ We don’t want to have too many of those,” he said.
Goedecke expects the biggest challenge to be getting repair work done.
“Trades were at their max before this. It’s going to push crash repairers and tradespeople to do all the work. So that’s going to be the biggest challenge for all consumers: how long it’s going to take to have things completed.”
The ICA said most damage claims in South Australia are from policyholders in areas including the Barossa Valley, Elizabeth, the Adelaide Hills, Salisbury and Craigmore.
Motor vehicle claims make-up two thirds of those currently lodged, said the ICA. It also expected crop losses from the Barossa Valley region to be substantial.
One obstacle to the recovery is likely to be South Australia’s border regime. The ICA said insurance disaster responders would be subject to a range of restrictions, including prohibiting entry altogether or having to quarantine for 14 days.
“The industry is facing constraints deploying staff into South Australia due to the State’s border arrangements and is engaging with the State Government to ensure this does not slow the assessment and repair process,” said the ICA’s CEO Andrew Hall.
He said the insurers’ first priority is community safety and strongly encouraged all those impacted by the storm event not to undertake any activity themselves that could put their safety at risk.
“It’s too early to understand the extent of the damage to property and crops in affected areas, or to estimate the insurance damage bill,” he said.
Victorians are also assessing their damage bill. Energy Minister Lily D’Ambrosio said that more than half a million Victorian properties were without power on Friday morning.
“What we’ve seen is another extraordinary event in Victoria,” said D’Ambrosio.
