Normalised insurance losses from Australian natural disasters: 1966–2017

Figures & data

Table 1. Top 10 most expensive normalised losses.

Rank	Season	Event	Location	State/Territory	Nominal loss (Millions of AUD)	Normalised loss (Millions of AUD)
1	1998	Sydney Hailstorm	Sydney	NSW	1700	5574
2	1974	Cyclone Tracy	Darwin	NT	200	5042
3	1966	Cyclone Dinah	Multiple	QLD/NSW	34	4685
4	1989	Newcastle Earthquake	Newcastle	NSW	862	4244
5	1973	Flooding Ex-Cyclone Wanda	Brisbane	QLD/NSW	68	3160
6	1982	Ash Wednesday Bushfires^a	Multiple	VIC/SA	176	2344
7	1984	Brisbane Hail Storm	Brisbane	QLD	180	2274
8	2010	Brisbane & Lockyer Valley Flooding^a	SE Queensland	QLD	2022	2260
9	2006	ECL Severe Storm^b	Multiple	NSW	1480	2197
10	1966	Black Tuesday Bushfires	Hobart & SE Tasmania	TAS	40	2157

^aThese events, which comprise two or more entries in the Disaster List, have been combined into a single event loss.

^bECL is an East Coast Low, a severe storm impacting the eastern seaboard.

Figure 1. (A) Annual aggregate losses by financial year in the dollars of the day; and (B) the annual aggregate of losses normalised to 2017 societal and demographic conditions. The heavy black line in the latter is the linear regression line considering all of the data; the dark grey area depicts the 95% confidence interval. Both graphs include losses from the 1989 Newcastle and other earthquakes.

Figure 2. Normalised losses from weather-related events only. As for Figure 1(B), the slope of the regression line is not significantly different from zero and the dark grey area depicts the 95% confidence interval.

Table 2. Breakdown of normalised losses by State and Territory: New South Wales (NSW); Victoria (VIC); Queensland (QLD); Western Australia (WA); Northern Territory (NT); Australian Capital Territory (ACT); Tasmania (TAS).

State	Nominal loss (millions of AUD)	Normalised loss (millions of AUD)	Proportion of normalised Losses (%)
QLD	11,704	34,354	38
NSW	9923	29,252	32
VIC	4533	10,817	12
NT	382	6448	7
WA	1950	4666	5
TAS	138	2374	3
SA	954	2053	2
ACT	350	839	1

Table 3. Breakdown of normalised losses by peril category. Percentages have been rounded up to single digit values.

Peril	Nominal loss (millions of AUD)	Normalised loss (millions of AUD)	Proportion of normalised losses (%)
Cyclone	5384	26,132	29
Hail	9672	25,060	27
Flooding	5276	13,658	15
Bushfire	3067	11,184	12
Storm	5089	9475	10
Earthquake	941	4652	5
Tornado	263	357	0
Other	505	645	1

Figure 3. Historical event losses adjusted by Consumer Price Index (CPI). The increasing trend is not consistent with the underlying peril data (see text).

Table 4. Top 10 seasonal aggregate normalised losses in millions of Australian Dollars (AUD).

Rank	Season	Nominal loss (millions of AUD)	Normalised loss (millions of AUD)
1	1966	90	9681
2	1989	1293	6552
3	1998	1892	6285
4	1974	215	5449
5	2010	4151	4742
6	1973	114	4630
7	2014	3844	4229
8	1984	390	4097
9	2009	2190	3075
10	2016	2942	2993

Figure A1. Normalised insurance losses caused by severe storms by financial year: 1966–2017. The absence of losses prior to 1976 is discussed in the text but is believed to be due to underreporting.

Figure A2. As for Figure A1 but for flooding losses.

Figure A3. As for Figure A1 but for tropical cyclone losses.

Figure A4. As for Figure A1 but for bushfire losses.

Figure A5. As for Figure A1 but for hailstorm losses.

Figure A6. Number of proxy flood events register per climate zone per year: 1900–2107.

Figure A7. Number of severe storm events per ‘season’ in Capital Urban Centre Localities (Appendix 1).