A new insurer is coming to town – one that would not gouge Far North homeowners with skyrocketing insurance prices, it has been reported.

In a conversation with Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and the Cairns Post, Leichhardt MP Warren Entsch revealed that a community-owned mutual insurer, which intends to offer lower premiums for cyclone-prone homes, is close to getting registered with APRA.

“They’ve come out of all the big insurance companies,” Entsch told the publication. “They were just waiting until they could get registered, which will happen this month or next month. Then we’re organising a meeting with [Financial Services Minister] Kelly O’Dwyer. That’s when you’ll see a fox in the chicken house; these guys will stir it up.”

In the report, Turnbull noted that there was a simple solution to slashing the cost of insurance, and that is to scrap stamp duty and strata commissions.

“I’m not passing the buck here,” he told the Cairns Post. “I’m just making the very point that if there’s one thing governments can do to reduce the cost of insurance, it’s get rid of that stamp duty. If you want people to have more of something, reduce or abolish the tax on it.”


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