The Australian Reinsurance Pool Corporation (ARPC) has released its latest quarterly statistics for the Cyclone Reinsurance Pool, showing the scheme now reinsures roughly 3.2 million properties and continues to drive payouts to households and small businesses in cyclone-exposed regions.
The figure is rising as insurer participation beds in.
Total annual cyclone reinsurance pool premiums sit at roughly $653 million across home, strata and SME policies. Average annual premiums are around $189 for home, $778 for strata and $237 for SME risks, broadly steady in recent quarters.
The book covers more than 3 million home properties, 73,000 strata buildings and over 100,000 small business properties.
As of December 31, the pool has logged more than 126,000 claims with a net incurred value of about $1.4 billion. ARPC tied recent claims volumes to major events including Cyclone Alfred.
APRC previously reported that cumulative claim payments to cedant insurers passed $1 billion, spanning 20 declared cyclones and associated events. CEO Christopher Wallace said at the time that "passing $1 billion in claim payments is a significant achievement for the scheme, and more importantly, for the communities it was designed to support."
The scheme runs under the Terrorism and Cyclone Insurance Act 2003, is intended to be cost-neutral to government over the long term, and is backed by a $10 billion annually reinstated Commonwealth guarantee.
The pool was built to ease premium pressure in cyclone-exposed Australia, and independent data suggests it is working.
The ACCC's fourth annual insurance monitoring report found average home and contents premiums in medium-to-high cyclone risk areas have fallen 11% since the pool launched, with the steepest cuts in coastal northern WA and north Queensland, where median premiums dropped roughly 15%.
Read more: Cyclone Alfred drives record claims for ARPC
Average SME premiums in those zones decreased 24%, and strata premiums in medium-to-high risk regions fell 7%, the ACCC said. ARPC has reported even larger headline reductions of up to 39% for households and 31% for SMEs in the highest-risk zones, alongside quote success rates that have climbed from 66% to 84%.
The ACCC report was the first complete assessment after all mandated insurers joined by the statutory deadline at the end of 2024. Treasury opened a review of the underlying Act in late 2025.
ARPC has credited $9 million in mitigation discounts against in-force premiums and expects uptake to rise as insurers refine data and policyholders respond to pricing signals.
The pool sits inside one of the world's most reinsurance-dependent markets. APRA data shows Australian general insurers spent A$4.3 billion on reinsurance premiums in the September 2025 quarter alone.
Insured catastrophe losses eased to A$1.97 billion in FY 2024-25 from A$2.61 billion the year before, per the Insurance Council of Australia, even as claim frequency stayed elevated.
Aon, in its mid-2025 reinsurance review, noted the cyclone pool "is now fully integrated alongside insurer's reinsurance catastrophe programs" and had "performed as intended."
