Six months after a severe hailstorm tore through the Darling Downs, some Clifton residents are still working through insurance claims. The Insurance Council of Australia (ICA) is sending insurers back to the town in June – and the broader numbers explain why the follow-through matters.
Insurers will be available at the Clifton Senior Citizens Centre on 8 Meara Place on June 8 and 9, between 10am and 4pm each day. The sessions, coordinated by the ICA, require no prior booking. The format gives policyholders direct access to insurer representatives – a channel that can be useful when written correspondence or phone contact has stalled a claim. Attendees can also raise questions about the claims process, dispute resolution options, and general coverage matters.
ICA director of mitigation and extreme weather response Liam Walter pointed to the drawn-out nature of hail damage as the reason the industry is returning to the area months after the event. “Early November’s severe hailstorm left widespread damage in Clifton, and we understand that, for some, the recovery isn’t over yet. Hail is one of those events that can have a long tail, with the full extent of damage sometimes taking time to surface. Insurers are committed to progressing claims from this event, and I encourage anyone with damage or questions about their claim to come along and talk to their insurer,” Walter said.
The November 2025 storm system that swept across Queensland and New South Wales has since been identified as the single most costly weather event of the year. ICA figures from April 2026 show it generated close to 93,000 claims with a combined insured loss of $1.78 billion – damage that ran from dented vehicle panels and broken windscreens through to structurally compromised homes. A separate spring storm system that moved through South East Queensland and northern New South Wales weeks earlier in late October and early November produced a further 41,200 claims and losses of nearly $900 million. Ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred, which struck in late February and early March, still holds the record for claim volume, with more than 133,000 lodged and total insured losses of $1.5 billion.
Five weather events were declared significant or catastrophic by the ICA across 2025:
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The ICA’s January 2026 data put full-year insured losses at around $3.5 billion across 264,000 claims. By April 2026, that figure had been revised to $4.8 billion – a 727% increase on 2024 – as further claims were lodged from the two hail events and assessed costs moved higher. The ICA noted this kind of post-event escalation is common for storm and hail catastrophes. To put the annual swings in perspective: insured losses from weather events were $585 million in 2024 and $2.35 billion in 2023. The 2025 result sits well above both years and underscores the difficulty of forecasting catastrophe costs from one calendar year to the next.
Across all declared events in 2025, insurers processed approximately 294,000 claims – close to six times the 2024 volume. The average cost per claim rose 39% to $16,471. The ICA estimates the total economic cost, which includes losses beyond what is insured, exceeded $8.6 billion for the year. Looking at the broader claims environment, Australia’s general insurers paid out $58.9 billion across 90 million policies in 2025 – an 18% increase year-on-year, or roughly $226 million for every working day.
