The National Insurance Brokers Association (NIBA) responded to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s (ACCC) finding that the Cyclone Reinsurance Pool has moderated premium growth for the highest cyclone-risk policyholders, arguing that the relief covers only a fraction of the market and comes against a backdrop of rising insurer profitability and an unresolved competition question in Western Australia. NIBA’s response followed the ACCC’s release of its fifth and final insurance monitoring report on June 25 and frames the pool’s five-year run as having addressed only part of what is driving up the cost and unavailability of insurance nationally.
NIBA’s central argument rests on scale: the pool affects roughly 2% of policies nationally, while the ACCC’s own consumer survey found that around half of Australian households – regardless of cyclone risk exposure – rated their home insurance as unaffordable or barely affordable. NIBA chief executive Richard Klipin said the ACCC’s work has been useful in surfacing this gap but does not close it. “The ACCC’s monitoring work has been genuinely valuable – it has brought rigour and accountability to a policy instrument that matters to a lot of Australians. As the ACCC concludes its monitoring role, the question now is: what comes next? The statutory review is the right vehicle to confront the bigger structural questions – competition, mitigation, tax, and long-term resilience investment. NIBA will be a constructive and active voice in that process,” Klipin said.
The report’s underlying figures give that framing some context. The 15 insurers the ACCC collected data from recorded a combined $2.8 billion net profit before tax in 2024-25, a 154% increase on the prior year and the third consecutive year of profit growth following losses in 2020-21 and 2021-22, driven mainly by higher premium rates and more favourable reinsurance conditions. Average combined home and contents premiums in north Western Australia reached close to $5,000 in 2024-25, up 8% on the previous year, while premiums across the rest of the country rose 10% to $2,310 – increases the ACCC attributed to rate rises rather than growth in policy numbers.
Competition is another area NIBA says requires closer scrutiny. The issue is already before the ACCC, which is conducting a Phase 2 review of IAG’s proposed acquisition of RAC Insurance (RACI) in Western Australia after opposing an earlier version of the deal in December 2025. In announcing the review in April, ACCC chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb said the acquisition would combine two of the state’s largest insurers and that RACI is WA’s market leader in both motor vehicle and home and contents insurance. She said the regulator was concerned the deal could substantially lessen competition in the supply of both product lines in Western Australia. The ongoing review means the competition concerns highlighted by NIBA remain an active regulatory issue even as the ACCC’s separate monitoring of the Cyclone Reinsurance Pool has concluded.
NIBA pointed to the ACCC’s finding that some insurers have not implemented cyclone mitigation frameworks and that communication with consumers about mitigation measures remains inconsistent. On this point, the report’s data provides some detail: insurer estimates of average retail premium reductions for recognised mitigation measures ranged from roughly 0.9% to 16.7%, with most insurers reporting reductions of less than 6%, against upfront mitigation costs that the ACCC’s consumer survey put at an average of $22,964 for a new roof and $11,360 for cyclone shutters.
More than half of surveyed consumers rated the cost of implementing mitigation as barely affordable or unaffordable, and 62% of those who did receive a premium reduction said it made only a small difference to their premium. Government-backed resilience funding covers only part of this gap: the report notes the Household Resilience Program offers eligible Queensland homeowners grants of up to $15,000 toward mitigation costs, while the Strata Resilience Program offers body corporates up to $150,000, though neither extends nationally nor covers the full cost of major measures such as roof replacement. NIBA said mitigation communication is an area where brokers already work directly with clients on risk profiles and cover options and argued the inconsistency the ACCC identified warrants continued attention as government decides what follows the pool.
The report’s findings on insurer appetite in cyclone-prone regions also speak to NIBA’s competition concern: the ACCC found only modest change in insurer appetite since the pool’s introduction. Barriers that insurers cited include thin risk data for pricing above the 26th parallel, the cost of establishing builder and repairer networks in remote areas, and the pool’s exclusion of farm property, which two insurers said was a specific reason they had not expanded further north.
NIBA separately renewed its position that insurance-related taxes remain a significant, and largely unexamined, driver of unaffordability, noting that none of the ACCC’s five monitoring reports assessed their impact in detail. NIBA argued this gap should be closed as part of the statutory review process, alongside the competition, mitigation, and resilience-funding questions it says the ACCC’s exit from its monitoring role leaves open.
