The QBE Foundation has distributed $600,000 through its 2026 local grants program to 12 community organisations, with four of the grants directed to climate resilience work. One of the recipients is based in Lismore, one of the most flood-exposed communities in the country.
Each recipient will receive $50,000 for work in climate resilience, inclusion, or through an Employee Choice category in which QBE staff nominate charities for funding. The foundation received more than 500 expressions of interest for the 2026 round.
Chris Esson, co-chair of the AUSPAC QBE Foundation in Australia, said the volume of applications reflected activity across the community sector. “The response to this year’s program reflects the depth of commitment and innovation across the community sector,” Esson said.
He added: “The twelve organisations selected this year are addressing complex challenges, strengthening community resilience, and creating opportunities for people to thrive. We are proud to support their efforts and look forward to seeing the positive outcomes their initiatives will deliver.”
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The climate resilience recipients are Resilient Lismore Incorporated, Powerwells Foundation Limited, Central Victorian Biolinks Alliance Inc. Public Fund, and the Community Broadcasting Association of Australia Limited. The remaining grants span inclusion initiatives and employee-nominated charities.
Resilient Lismore works in a region that has been at the centre of the insurance affordability debate since the February 2022 floods. The Insurance Council of Australia (ICA) has described the event as Australia’s costliest insured disaster, with more than 242,000 claims totalling approximately $6.4 billion.
ICA CEO Andrew Hall said in February 2025 that Lismore “remains one of the most flood-exposed communities in the country” and that “much more investment in hard infrastructure is needed to better protect this unique city.”
The grants come as pressure on insurance affordability continues to build. The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority’s (APRA) Climate Vulnerability Assessment, published in March 2026, estimated that one in seven houses is currently uninsured and projected the figure could reach one in four by 2050. It also projected that expected annual losses from weather events could climb from approximately $7 billion to more than $16 billion by 2050 under a higher physical risk scenario, and that the protection gap in rural areas could exceed 40%.
State-level data points the same way. A 2025 survey of more than 2,400 homeowners by the NSW Reconstruction Authority found that 7% of NSW homeowners had no home building insurance, with 66% of that group citing cost as the reason. The same survey found that up to 63% of homeowners may be unknowingly underinsured by at least 5%.
Brokers in disaster-affected regions see those pressures directly. James Still, founder of Still Insured Insurance Brokers in Queensland, described visiting the flood-affected community of Bloomfield in Far North Queensland earlier this year. “Bloomfield was a once in a lifetime experience. I’d never walked into a town where people’s houses were simply gone. Coming out of this experience, flood [cover] is definitely going to be something I’ll recommend to everyone,” Still said.
The National Insurance Brokers Association (NIBA) has pointed to structural barriers that sit beyond insurers’ control.
NIBA CEO Richard Klipin said in April 2026 that APRA’s findings “underscores what brokers have been experiencing on the ground” and that “climate risk is already putting pressure on affordability, increasing underinsurance.”
NIBA has noted that stamp duty, emergency services levies and goods and services tax (GST) can add up to 70% to premiums, which it describes as a structural barrier to adequate cover.
NIBA president Nick Cook said: “The answer cannot be to wait until after the next disaster and rebuild again at greater cost.”
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QBE’s 2025 Impact Report shows the foundation increased its corporate community investment by 18% during the year. Through its partnership with Red Cross and Save the Children, it has reached more than 541,000 people through disaster preparedness programs since 2019.
The report does not include outcome-level data from previous local grant rounds, such as measurable changes in community resilience or risk reduction linked to funded projects.
As one of Australia’s largest home and commercial insurers, QBE has a direct commercial interest in communities becoming more resilient to natural disasters, since reduced risk can lower claims costs over time. Grants of $50,000 are modest against the scale of the protection gap, but for brokers in flood-exposed regions, whether community-level resilience work can eventually influence risk profiles, and with them the cost and availability of cover, remains a live question.
Applications for QBE’s 2027 local grants program will open early next year.
