Queensland has absorbed more than half of all national disaster insurance claims over the past four years, and the Insurance Council of Australia (ICA) says the state’s planning rules will determine whether that trajectory continues.
In its submission to the Queensland State Planning Policy (SPP) review, the ICA called on the government to keep natural hazard protections at the centre of planning decisions, even as it moves to simplify the framework and standardise flood mapping.
Between 2022 and 2026, insurers received more than 400,000 claims nationally to repair or rebuild homes damaged in declared events, at an insured cost of $11.3 billion. More than 214,000 of those claims were in Queensland, almost double the 116,000 in New South Wales. Victoria recorded 25,000.
In 2025 alone, declared events damaged 145,392 homes across Australia, according to the ICA’s submission. That is only marginally fewer than the 172,657 new homes completed nationally that year.
“Decisions about where we build today will decide how exposed Queensland communities are to floods, cyclones and bushfires for decades to come,” said ICA deputy CEO Kylie Macfarlane.
The cost of getting location wrong goes beyond claims volume. Data from Cotality’s Cordell Construction Cost Index (CCI), cited in the ICA’s submission, shows a standard home in Queensland now costs approximately 45% more to build than in 2021, meaning the most exposed properties are also the most expensive to repair.
For brokers, rising rebuild costs have a direct impact on client outcomes. Every rebuild competes for the same tradespeople and materials needed to build new housing, and that competition is likely to intensify. Queensland has a projected $127.5 billion in planned engineering construction over the next five years, driven largely by the Brisbane 2032 Olympic Games, according to the Queensland Major Contractors Association.
When builders, trades, and materials are stretched across disaster repairs and major infrastructure projects at the same time, clients in high-risk areas can face longer rebuild timelines and growing sum insured gaps.
“Queensland needs more homes, and it needs them in the right places. Every home damaged by extreme weather competes for the same tradespeople and materials needed to build new ones, so getting location right helps housing supply as well as safety,” Macfarlane said.
Read more: Disaster funding cuts will lift Queensland premiums, mayors warn
The submission outlines several measures the ICA wants embedded in the revised SPP. These include consistent planning and building rules across all councils, calibrated to each area’s hazard risk, and safeguards to ensure simplified rules do not weaken standards for new developments, including infill housing in established suburbs.
The ICA also wants the policy to explicitly recognise climate change and plan for projected impacts out to between 2075 and 2100, aligning Queensland with flood guidelines in other jurisdictions such as Victoria. The submission calls for coverage of all extreme weather types, noting that cyclones and storms appear to be absent from the current draft alongside the existing references to floods, bushfires, and coastal erosion.
Other recommendations include a clear definition of acceptable and tolerable risk, council decisions backed by an evidence base with state oversight, and consistent, up-to-date flood mapping with data accessible to homeowners, insurers, councils, and government agencies.
The ICA also flagged that it is developing a national Climate Risk Land Use Planning Framework in partnership with the Planning Institute of Australia, which it said could strengthen Queensland’s approach.
The push for standardised flood data comes as councils across Queensland continue to operate with different mapping methodologies. In Logan, updated council flood maps prompted debate among property owners about whether the new risk ratings accurately reflected their exposure, with direct implications for pricing.
For brokers, the consequences are practical. When insurers and councils rely on different datasets, the risk profile a broker presents to a client may not match what the insurer’s pricing model produces, making it harder to explain premium movements or secure competitive terms.
Those data gaps also affect how brokers advise on cover. James Still, founder of Queensland-based Still Insured Insurance Brokers and 2025 National Insurance Brokers Association (NIBA)-Vero National Young Broker of the Year, said a visit to flood-devastated Bloomfield in Far North Queensland showed him the real-world cost of clients without adequate flood protection.
“Coming out of this experience, flood [cover] is definitely going to be something I’ll recommend to everyone,” Still said.
Victoria recently gazetted mandatory flood planning rules built on a five-tier Flood Risk Rating system, restricting development in the highest-risk zones. The ICA’s submission suggests Queensland should pursue a similar level of consistency.
Read more: Flood map changes in Logan prompt insurance cost debate
The planning debate sits within a broader affordability challenge. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s (ACCC) fifth insurance monitoring report, published in June 2026, found that while the Cyclone Reinsurance Pool has reduced home insurance premiums by 14% in higher cyclone-risk areas, average premiums across the rest of the country rose 10% to $2,310 between 2023-24 and 2024-25.
Average home and contents premiums remain above $3,100 in north Queensland, according to the ACCC.
In October 2026, all 77 Queensland mayors signed an open letter to the Prime Minister warning that proposed changes to the Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements, which would shift the Commonwealth’s share from around 64% to a 50-50 split, could push premiums higher and strain council budgets.
For brokers with clients in high-risk Queensland postcodes, the SPP review signals potential changes to where and how homes can be built. Brokers should be checking whether the flood and hazard data they rely on at renewal matches what their insurer uses, and flagging discrepancies early. The ICA submission’s emphasis on consistent state-wide mapping, if adopted, could eventually reduce the data mismatches that complicate placement.
Proactively discussing flood cover with clients who may not currently hold it is another practical step, particularly given the ICA’s finding that around 1.36 million properties nationally sit in flood-risk areas. With rebuild costs rising and construction capacity under pressure, reviewing sums insured against current replacement values is equally important.
“Reducing risk is what brings premiums down over time, and good land-use planning is one of the strongest tools governments have to do that,” Macfarlane said.
