Insurance and Flood Cover

K

karina

During the QLD floods I learnt that my NRMA policies did not cover me for floods and I felt very exposed not knowing whether I would be affected or not. Fortunatly none of my properties were affected.

I have been looking for flood cover since only to find it can be very expensive, however today I came across Westpac Insurance that offer automatic flood cover and the quotes I got came in no more expensive than my existing insurer that does not cover floods.

Only thing is you need to be a westpac customer so I became one today and plan to change my policies over next week.

Just thought I would share this in case there is anyone out there struggling with finding flood cover at a reasonable price.
 
Suncorp cover for all flood except king tide damage - I think I pay about $480 a year for landlord and house insurance with them
 
The difference between the various floods in QLD and if they were insured or not depended on how the floods came about. As pithy as it sounds, it depends on if the water falls from the sky, or if the water rises breaking the banks or a river or sewer and thus floods the property. The first is flash flood which is covered by most insurance companies, the second is regular floods, which is only covered by about 50% of the insurers out there.

Are you in a location where there's a chance that your property will be flooded from rising waters? Apparently only about 6% of properties in Australia are acutally in a 1 in 100 year flood area. Of course part of the problem of why many insurers don't cover regular floods is because not all of the statistics regarding this are accurate as records haven't been kept for long enough.

If you're sitting at the top of a hill and there's no chance that rising waters will flood your property, it may not be worth the extra expense of some policies. If you live in a valley alongside a creek or a river, this would change the requirements.
 
porp_e said:
NRMA is another one that will insure for flooding (everything except king tides).
Click to expand...
NRMA don't cover flood in QLD; I think they only cover flood for NSW properties. Apparently it's got to do with market saturation and the expense of accurate data for risk assessment. NRMA have enough NSW customers (and Suncorp enough QLD customers) to justify the expense of purchasing and analysing flood data. NRMA don't have enough customers in QLD to justify this expense, so they don't cover their QLD customers for flood.
 
Perp said:
NRMA don't cover flood in QLD; I think they only cover flood for NSW properties. Apparently it's got to do with market saturation and the expense of accurate data for risk assessment. NRMA have enough NSW customers (and Suncorp enough QLD customers) to justify the expense of purchasing and analysing flood data. NRMA don't have enough customers in QLD to justify this expense, so they don't cover their QLD customers for flood.
Click to expand...

Ah no worries didn't know that. Our place is insured through them but it's in NSW so that explains the cover we get. Thanks for the info.
 
I can understand why king tides are not covered but in Nth Qld I'd ask for a ruling on whether a "storm surge" related to a cyclone is still a king tide.

There are always arguments about flash flooding and rivers rising so a clear ruling should be sought.
 
I've just done a similar thing, was reviewing all my property portfolio insurance and am now switching over to Westpac for, (what I consider, after my research and diligence), greater 'bang for buck' plus more extensive flood cover. The floods that just hit Victoria did get periously close to floorboards in one property, no damage done but now I will have more coverage, (for less cost), plus with heap of property I get a discount.

I 'manage' my insurance coverage on all the IP's depending upon the people renting also, but am very, very pleased with what Westpac is offering.:)
 
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