Three years of floods and storms across Australia have cost insurers $12 billion (US$8.03 billion), as the latest disaster in the east coast state of New South Wales (NSW) claims a third life.
Search and rescuers found the body of a 19-year-old man in the Riverina town of Balranald on Wednesday, four days after he vanished while swimming in floodwaters.
It’s the third death this month linked to NSW’s flooding crisis after Ljubisa “Les” Vugec, 85, and Dianne Smith, 60, died when the central western town of Eugowra was devastated by floodwaters.
New data released on Wednesday showed more than 3500 insurance claims had been lodged due to the recent flooding in the NSW central west.
While the value of those claims is unknown, the Insurance Council of Australia said flood and storm claims since January 2020 had topped $12.3b.
The $5.65 billion February-March 2022 disaster that washed away parts of Lismore, damaged Sydney and inundated southeast Queensland now surpasses the 1999 Sydney hailstorm in cost, making it the most expensive natural disaster in Australia’s history.
Nine months on, about $2.1b in claims from that event is still to be paid out, with 73,000 claims still open.
The October storms and floods that inundated Melbourne’s inner suburbs and swept across three states led to about 17,250 claims worth an estimated $477 million.
The $12.3b figure includes $3.7b from two hailstorms and a flood event in southeast Queensland in 2020.
“The fact that one in 25 of us has had to lodge an insurance claim because of this extreme weather is very sobering,” the insurance council’s chief, Andrew Hall, said.
“We must not ignore what this data is telling us to do – invest in community-level mitigation, home retrofits, home buybacks in the most extreme cases, and better early warning systems.
Insurers were working “around the clock” to close out claims generated from the February-March 2022 disaster, he said.
Meanwhile, farmers are also being warned about risks from snakes as the reptiles flee the floodwaters affecting vast swathes of inland NSW.
It’s a double whammy for farmers after months of flooding that has isolated towns and torn apart rural roads - hampering vets’ efforts to treat livestock bitten by snakes.
The NSW Farmers Rural Affairs Committee’s Sarah Thompson says the increase in snake sightings being reported is a worry.
“People with dogs who are going out to move stranded livestock are at a higher risk of being bitten,” she said on Wednesday.
“This is happening everywhere.
“We’ve heard recently about livestock being lost to snakes because some farms are more like islands than paddocks, and they can’t get to a vet.”
Meanwhile, floodwaters are receding in Hay, providing some relief to council crews patrolling the town’s levee day and night.
Major flooding is expected in Balranald over the weekend, while authorities are also concerned as major flooding continues in the Lachlan River towns of Condobolin, Euabalong and Hillston.
The State Emergency Service said it was planning for potential major flooding and consequences on communities to continue to the end of summer.
Elsewhere, Amanda Causley has been named NSW’s Public Servant of the Year for leading the coordination of 54 evacuation centres to support flooded communities.
