PERILS has released its third industry loss estimate for the severe convective storms that affected Australia’s east coast between Oct. 26 and Nov. 1, 2025, putting insured losses at $1.501 billion based on property and motor hull data from the majority of the local insurance market.
The latest figure adjusts earlier PERILS assessments of $1.108 billion six weeks after the event and $1.512 billion at three months. The organisation’s estimate follows its Australian methodology, using postcode-level information for property and motor hull classes and allocating results to CRESTA zones. According to PERILS, personal property policies account for 61% of the total loss, with commercial property at 25% and motor hull at 14%. The financial impact was largely concentrated in Queensland, which represents 94% of the total insured loss for this event. New South Wales accounts for 5%, with the remainder spread across other affected areas, including parts of Victoria.
Alongside the loss figures, PERILS has provided postcode-level maximum estimated hail size intensity data. The combination of this hazard information with exposure data is expected to assist insurers and reinsurers in assessing severe convective storm risk across different lines and regions. In line with its standard schedule, PERILS plans to publish another update to the industry loss estimate on Nov. 2, 2026, 12 months after the event end date, to reflect further claim development and adjustments.
From Oct. 26 to Nov. 1, 2025, a period of atmospheric instability produced repeated severe convective storms along Australia’s eastern seaboard. The greater Brisbane area in South East Queensland experienced the most intense conditions on Oct. 26, including large hail and strong winds affecting residential, commercial and motor risks. Further convective storms followed over subsequent days in South East Queensland and New South Wales, contributing additional property and motor losses. The event formed part of a broader sequence of severe weather in late 2025 and was followed within weeks by another storm and hail outbreak affecting overlapping regions.
Darryl Pidcock, head of Asia-Pacific & cyber at PERILS, said the October storms were one of two substantial severe convective storm events in close succession. “This is the first of two major Severe Convective Storms that impacted this region within a month, generating over AUD 4 billion in insured losses. This report, released six months after the event, includes very detailed hail intensity information at a postcode level. Combining the physical intensities with PERILS Industry Exposure data provides a wealth of information and insights regarding vulnerabilities across the different lines of business enabling a more comprehensive understanding of the impacts of Severe Convective Storms in these exposed regions,” Pidcock said. The PERILS dataset is being used for pricing, zoning, catastrophe model calibration, and accumulation management, particularly for hail‑exposed personal and commercial property and motor portfolios in South East Queensland and northern New South Wales.
The PERILS update sits against a wider national loss picture published by the Insurance Council of Australia (ICA), which estimates insured losses from declared extreme weather events in 2025 at $4.8 billion, a 727% increase on 2024. More than $4.1 billion of that total is attributed to Queensland. ICA analysis shows that a severe storm and hail event in November across Queensland and New South Wales has become the costliest individual event of 2025, surpassing Ex‑Tropical Cyclone Alfred. The November outbreak has generated almost 93,000 claims with insured losses of $1.78 billion, including motor, property, and contents damage ranging from dented vehicles to water ingress and debris impacts on buildings.
Severe spring storms earlier in November affecting South East Queensland and northern New South Wales have resulted in nearly $900 million in insured losses across about 41,200 claims. Ex‑Tropical Cyclone Alfred remains the event with the highest claim count, with more than 133,000 claims and a total insured loss of $1.5 billion. The ICA’s previous communication on 2025 extreme weather put insured costs at $3.5 billion. The increase to $4.8 billion reflects further claims lodged and higher costs associated with the two major storm and hail events, consistent with the pattern of longer development often observed for these perils.
Across all declared extreme weather events in 2025, Australian insurers handled about 294,000 claims, almost six times the prior year’s volume. The average cost per claim rose by 39% to $16,471. The ICA estimates the broader economic impact of 2025 extreme weather, including uninsured and indirect costs, at more than $8.6 billion. Extreme weather insured losses were $2.35 billion in 2023 and $585 million in 2024, illustrating variability in annual outcomes. Overall, general insurers paid $58.9 billion in claims across around 90 million policies in 2025, up 18% on the previous year and equivalent to about $226 million in claims paid each working day.
