WHEN writing my weekly opinion piece for this publication and expressing a view on the matter being considered, it is refreshing to take a look back at past articles in order to see if I was on the right track, right from the start.
My favourite daily news service is provided online by the ABC each morning and my day is not complete without reference to it.
Back on 31 January last year my article titled “Postcode Problems” looked at how insurance companies use our postcodes in order to assess risk when pricing premiums for home insurance, particularly in relation to the potential for flooding.
To their credit, ABC News has since provided information largely previously inaccessible to the public (on 15/4/25) as provided by the Climate Council on “how climate risk makes some suburbs uninsurable”.
The website allowed you to select your suburb in order to assess its risk.
From conversations locally I know how many residents are having regarding insurance issues each year due to the perceived risk of flooding.
So, I have accessed the Climate Council’s research which provided the following advice.
Tea Gardens: Percentage of properties with high risk of flooding being 11.17 percent. That is 277 properties out of a total of 2480.
Hawks Nest: Percentage of properties with high risk of flooding being 2.57 percent, which is 50 properties out of 1947.
North Arm Cove: 82.18 percent at risk, being 798 properties from a total of 971.
Bundabah: 82.24 percent at risk, being 176 properties from a total of 214.
Pindimar: 31.9 percent at risk, so 260 properties from a total of 815.
Tahlee: 100 percent at risk, being all of their 17 properties.
So, we now should all be aware of how and why our home insurance premiums are viewed and calculated each year by expert insurers.
By John BLACKBOURN
