A third assessment of insured losses from the severe convective storms (SCS) that swept through Queensland and New South Wales in late November 2025 has placed the industry figure at $2,943 million, according to data released May 27 by PERILS, a Zurich-based organisation that collects catastrophe insurance data from participating markets. The latest figure sits marginally below the $2,950 million estimate PERILS published three months after the event and is approximately 10.5% above the $2,663 million figure the organisation released six weeks after the storms. The estimate draws on postcode-level claims data submitted across property and motor hull lines by a majority of Australian insurers, with the methodology following the PERILS coverage definition for Australia.
Residential property accounts for the largest portion of the total, at 67% of industry losses. Commercial property lines follow at 21%, with motor hull at 12% – a share PERILS described as below what the organisation would typically observe for a storm event of this severity. Queensland absorbed the bulk of the damage, representing 91% of the total estimated industry loss. New South Wales contributed 8%. The storms moved along Australia’s east coast from Brisbane to Sydney between Nov. 21 and 27, 2025, producing large hailstones, damaging wind gusts, and concentrated rainfall across a wide geographic area. Conditions peaked on Nov. 24, when hailstones with diameters of up to 14 centimetres struck South East Queensland.
Darryl Pidcock, head of Asia-Pacific & cyber at PERILS, said the third estimate reflects a market loss picture that has not shifted substantially since the previous report. “Industry losses are quite stable compared to the second loss report released three months after the event. These recent storms demonstrate how the key drivers of insured losses can vary between events. Despite exceptionally large hail, motor claims accounted for a lower-than-usual share at 12% of total industry losses – well below what we would typically observe. Instead, storm damage largely impacted residential properties and to a lesser extent commercial properties, reflecting the combined effects of destructive winds, intense rainfall, and large hailstones,” Pidcock said. He also pointed to the analytical value the data holds for the market going forward. “The detailed losses included in this report together with the observed storm intensities offer valuable insights how SCS events can differ materially with their impact on insured properties,” he said. A fourth and final PERILS estimate for the event is scheduled for Nov. 27, 2026, 12 months after the storm sequence ended.
The late-November storm sequence has since been identified as the single most costly extreme weather event in Australia for 2025, according to updated figures published by the Insurance Council of Australia (ICA) in April 2026. The event generated close to 93,000 claims totalling $1.78 billion, with damage recorded across motor vehicles and residential structures. A separate spring storm that hit South East Queensland and northern New South Wales earlier that month had reached $900 million across 41,200 claims as of the ICA’s April update. Ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred, which produced the highest claims volume of any 2025 event at more than 133,000 lodged claims, resulted in $1.5 billion in insured losses – placing it behind the November storms on a cost basis.
Across the 2025 calendar year, insured losses from declared extreme weather events in Australia totalled $4.8 billion, according to the ICA – a 727% increase on 2024 figures. Queensland accounted for $4.1 billion of that national total. The ICA’s previous update had placed the 2025 figure at $3.5 billion, with the upward revision driven by ongoing claims activity and rising costs from the two major storm and hail events. The wider economic cost of 2025’s weather events, incorporating both insured and uninsured losses, is estimated to exceed $8.6 billion.
Australian insurers processed 294,000 claims from declared weather events during 2025 – roughly six times the prior year’s volume. The average cost per claim rose 39% year-on-year to $16,471. For comparison, insured extreme weather losses were $2.35 billion in 2023 and $585 million in 2024, illustrating the degree of variability from one year to the next. Across all classes of business, Australia’s general insurers paid out $58.9 billion in claims during 2025, an 18% rise on the prior year, covering 90 million policies – equivalent to approximately $226 million per working day, the ICA said. The ICA has cited the scale and unpredictability of recent loss years as an argument for greater government spending on pre-event mitigation, particularly for communities with higher exposure to weather-related loss.
