A federal inquiry into flood insurance has found the industry failed ‘too many people’. It’s recommending major changes to help guard against long delays and disputes going forward.
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00:00Averley McCann has been waiting two and a half years for her insurance nightmare to
00:07end. Her home in northern New South Wales was damaged during record-breaking floods
00:14in 2022.
00:15It was traumatic. The entire process was like picking off a scab every time. You could never
00:23heal.
00:24More than 300,000 claims covering billions of dollars in damage were made by flood survivors
00:30in 2022. Averley's just one of many facing long insurance delays.
00:36Today, a federal government inquiry found the problem was systemic.
00:40It was clear that a lot of individuals were left hanging for far too long. So I think
00:47those people were often failed by the system.
00:50The inquiry has called on the insurance industry to review its code of practice, increase transparency
00:57on prices and premiums, and to provide policies with fully paid temporary accommodation until
01:03the claim is closed. It also wants claims to be accepted if an insurer hasn't made a
01:09decision after 12 months.
01:12Insurers are very focused on cost of living issues. There will be a number of recommendations
01:17that are a very good idea, but we'll have to balance out how they're implemented against
01:22the cost of running those recommendations.
01:25There are also recommendations for the federal government to step in and help at-risk people
01:30who can't access affordable insurance. And for states and territories to develop buy-back
01:37programs.
01:38Government also needs to have a very robust plan for community-level mitigation like levies.
01:44It can be meaningful. But we've seen with a lot of these sorts of inquiries where they
01:50adopt some of the recommendations and not the ones that are kind of harder to enforce.
01:55The government will consider the findings before issuing a response.