Northern Australian residents would be offered more affordable and accessible home and business insurance, thanks to the establishment of a reinsurance pool by the Morrison Government.
\nThe reinsurance pool would cover cyclone and related flood damage in northern Australia from 1 July 2022, and would be backed by a $10 billion government guarantee.
\nThis would reduce insurance premiums across Northern Australia by over $1.5 billion for households, strata and small businesses over 10 years.
\nMore than 500,000 residential, strata and small business property insurance policies in Northern Australia are expected to be eligible to be covered by the reinsurance pool.
\nThe Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the plan shows the Government is listening to Australians who live in the North of the country.
\n\u201cWe believe in the future of Northern Australia. This means we need to take further action to boost the resilience for Australians to live and work in northern Australia,\u201d the Prime Minister said.
\n\u201cI\u2019ve listened to our local MPs and senators, I\u2019ve sat down with residents and discussed the issue. Homeowners and businesses have been faced with crippling insurance costs, and in some cases, can\u2019t get insurance at all. It\u2019s not ok, and we\u2019re going to change that.
\n\u201cOur plan will give more Australians in cyclone-prone areas access to affordable insurance.\u201d
\nTreasurer Josh Frydenberg said a Treasury-led Taskforce will continue work on this to develop the final design of the reinsurance pool in close consultation with industry, with details to be finalised following that consultation process.
\n\u201cMore affordable insurance means peace-of-mind for hundreds of thousands of Australians across Northern Australia, knowing that their economic livelihoods are protected,\u201d the Treasurer said.
\nMinister for Agriculture, Drought and Emergency Management David Littleproud said that while the Federal Government is not the insurer of last resort, a reinsurance pool would make insurance easier and cheaper for those in the tropical north.
\n\u201cIt will put more money back into the pockets of those in the cyclone and flood prone areas of far north Queensland and the savings will build in their bank accounts for years to come,\u201d Minister Littleproud said.
\nMinister for Resources, Water and Northern Australia Keith Pitt said high insurance costs in northern Australia have long been a problem.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s been a problem for business, a problem for local economies and a problem for every person who lives in the North. The passionate advocacy that occurred by George Christensen, Warren Entsch, Phil Thompson, Michelle Landry, Susan McDonald and Sam McMahon in fighting for north Australians to address this issue has delivered for the region today. I want to thank them for their hard work,\u201d Minister Pitt said.
\nThe Government is also announcing a plan to specifically reduce insurance costs for strata properties, by committing $40 million for the North Queensland Strata Title Resilience Pilot Program, to start in 2022.
\nStrata properties face some of the worst insurance affordability pressures in Northern Australia. The ACCC noted that, in 2018-19, the average strata premium was $6,800 in North Queensland, compared with the Australian average of only $3,300. Strata residents have few options other than to pay this because strata properties are required to hold insurance under Queensland legislation.
\nAssistant Treasurer Michael Sukkar said this three-year pilot program will subsidise the cost of cyclone risk mitigation works to improve insurance affordability and access for strata title properties in North Queensland.
\n\u201cToday\u2019s announcement represents the most significant action taken by the Commonwealth to improve insurance affordability and accessibility in Northern Australia,\u201d Minister Sukkar said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Northern Australian residents would be offered more affordable and accessible home and business insurance, thanks to the establishment of a reinsurance pool by the Morrison Government. The reinsurance pool would cover cyclone and related flood damage in northern Australia from 1 July 2022, and would be backed by a $10 billion government guarantee. This would … Continue reading “More affordable access to insurance for Northern Australians”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aussie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11267"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11267\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}