As of March 14, Suncorp had received over 34,000 insurance claims, with around 60% in Queensland and around 40% in NSW. Of the total claims, over 80% were related to home damage.
Based on early provisional forecasts, Suncorp’s net retained loss from the devastating floods in the two states has remained unchanged at around $75 million, with recoveries triggered under a combination of the insurer’s various reinsurance covers (including Aggregate Excess of Loss treaty), dropdown covers, main catastrophe program, and the quota share arrangement in the Queensland home portfolio.
In addition, the insurance giant’s latest estimate of natural hazard costs for the full year has risen to around $1.1 billion, a dramatic jump from its earlier estimate of $1,075 million.
As Suncorp expects to receive more claims related to the catastrophic flooding in Queensland and NSW, it continues to support affected customers and communities.
Suncorp Group CEO Steve Johnston said the insurer’s customer support teams are in the hardest-hit areas to provide face-to-face claims support. Meanwhile, its assessors and builders are working around the clock inspecting the damage.
“I have spent time with our teams and customers on the ground in Gympie, Lismore, and around southeast Queensland. It’s some of the most widespread devastation I have witnessed, and it is a tragedy for so many Australians,” Johnston said. “I am very proud of how our people have responded when our customers need us most.”
Suncorp’s flood response and recovery team also uses aerial imagery, real-time data, and on-the-ground insights to help understand the impacts of the severe weather event on customers and directly support impacted areas.
“Our ongoing focus on the digital experience resulted in around 70% of claims lodged online,” said Johnston. “This allowed us to quickly understand the scale of the event, deploy resources, and support our customers faster than ever before. We have also sent more than 1.1 million digital messages to promote online lodgement and provide information on the claims process.”
Recently, Suncorp had finalised a new national panel of builders to enhance repair quality, capacity, and costs.
“Our national panel of builders has given us increased capacity to respond to significant extreme weather events in addition to our everyday working claims. Given the scale of this event, we have worked to secure additional builder capacity and have enacted project management capability for specific regions,” Johnston said. “This will be a major rebuilding effort, across multiple regions, that will take many months. We are currently prioritising our most impacted customers, but we know every claim is important.”
