The Insurance Council of Australia (ICA) is revisiting Lismore this week to meet with businesses, government, and community to hear how the region is recovering and rebuilding three years after the devastating 2022 floods.

Mitigation and affordability were the two hot topics of discussion at yesterday's roundtable meeting, with others, such as Member for Lismore Janelle Saffin and Mayor Steve Krieg, joining online.

The catastrophic event that impacted the Northern Rivers region and South-East Queensland in February and March of 2022 remains the costliest insured event in Australia's history.

To emphasise this, Andrew Hall, CEO of the Insurance Council of Australia (ICA), said the ICA went from having, on average, 30,000 claims in the insurance system across Australia in any given week to 240,000 claims. The 2022 flood event cost $6.4 billion.

"More than 99 per cent of these claims are closed, with insurers continuing to receive a small number of new claims each month from this event," Mr Hall said.

"There are still some claims that are outstanding that is due to individual circumstances where people may want a different outcome, and they're working through those processes. There is the finance ombudsman that is working through complaints, and invariably, particularly when there's been very large events, we do get a tale of complaints to take a long time to resolve. Insurers are very aware of these. There was scrutiny of this last year through the federal parliamentary inquiry."

The roundtable included a discussion of a range of mitigation measures put in place by local businesses to improve their resilience against future extreme weather events, including raising or relocating homes in high-risk locations and businesses that have been built back better.

As part of its collaborative approach to work with government to help build more resilient communities, the ICA met representatives of all three levels of government during its visit to Lismore to discuss progress in the region and community mitigation options.

Mr Hall. mentioned that there are 24 dangerous catchments on the east coast of Australia, and in New South Wales alone, there are around 170,000 homes that sit in either a 2% or 5% risk of flooding every year. He said that unlike storms and cyclones, which are unpredictable, floods are predictable.

"They are high-risk homes. We have one of the largest proportion of flood-vulnerable homes in this country compared to other nations. It is incredibly important that we double down on the infrastructure spend in this country, complete the levies, follow the science, listen to the work that is being done, and work to make sure that important community centres like Lismore are better protected into the future.

"I want to thank particularly the state government. Lismore City Council, the business community and others that have worked so closely with the insurance Council over the last three years. Our work here is nowhere near complete. Work continues on doing the studies to make Lismore a resilient community.

"The word resilient gets thrown around a lot, but in the case of flood, it's critically important. And I think this isn't just about a question of affordable insurance. This is about making sure that people's homes and businesses are no longer located in areas that can face water heights of up to 14 meters. We need to make sure that moving forward, Lismore is one of the best examples in Australia of a flood-proof community, one where we can normalise insurance premiums and people can invest with confidence into the future."

Apart from Lismore businesses rebuilt in a more resilient way, Mr Hall also noted the importance of the CSIRO report before June 30 this year and the pending scenario results 12 months later.

"Once that study is completed, we will be looking to governments to put hard cash behind the work that needs to be done. Without hard infrastructure to physically protect communities like Lismore into the future, there will remain upward pressure on insurance premiums across Australia."

Mr Hall did acknowledge that long-term flood mitigation measures that involve major infrastructure commitments will take 10 to 20 years to deliver.

"We've had a change of thinking in this country when it comes to our national road and rail infrastructure. We take very long term views to the investment there. The same long-term thinking needs to be applied now to flood mitigation, particularly on the east coast of Australia.

"In the short term, there are measures that we can take to deal with insurance affordability, and insurers are currently working with the government on a range of possible options, and we will talk about that in due course, when we can land some agreements around all of that.

"The most immediate thing we could be doing, though, here in New South Wales, is removing the emergency services levy off insurance premiums. And across Australia, abolishing stamp duty.

"Up to 30% of your insurance premium is currently taxed. That tax could be removed. People could get immediate relief at the moment, through cost of living. I think state governments have become addicted to the revenue off insurance premiums. People don't notice that they're paying them, and we have not seen anywhere near the level of investment returned from the revenue that's collected across Australia from insurance premiums.

"A lot of investment has gone on in Lismore, a billion dollars at least, I think, in the last couple of years. That just shows you how expensive this problem will be to fix. So, if we're not going to reform the taxes that are on insurance policies in this country, we should be demanding when studies like the CSIRO are completed, the governments come straight to the to the table with a significant commitment of hard infrastructure funding to follow up whatever the findings are that come out of those reports."

Mr Hall reiterated a line of thinking often spruiked by Member for Lismore Janelle Saffin, that we spend too much money on rebuilding our community after a disaster and not enough on prevention.

"One of the worst things we do in this country is, when we have a bad event, we focus quickly on the recovery, but not enough on the lessons. We focus on the rebuild, which we should do, but we don't talk about prevention for future events.

"I think that's changed here in Lismore. I think we need to learn the lessons for how programs have worked, and we have made some good, good strides forward here in Lismore. We've also made, some decisions that have not been popular in the community, and insurers understand that, and I think governments understand that, but these are all providing lessons for us, for not just Lismore, but for communities across Australia that face a similar sort of flood threat."

Jane Laverty, Regional Director of Business NSW, was excited to share with Mr Hall how local businesses have built back better since February 28 2022.

"We've had a great relationship with ICA, and this is a great opportunity to share with Andrew the hard work and the resilience of businesses here, how they've been building back better and thinking about their business continuity, that's what's really critical.

"We know that some of the solutions will be long-term solutions, and an event could happen at any time. So we do need to ensure that our businesses are ready and able to get out and get back in as quickly as possible and continue operating their businesses.

"In terms of investment, we agree wholeheartedly that we do need to be investing in mitigation. We think the Northern Rivers is worth investment from all levels of government, and particularly our businesses and community are worth that investment, and we'd like to see the results of the CSIRO report so that we can keep moving forward and actually make it happen."

As a community, Lismore understands it has to wait for meaningful flood mitigation solutions. What is more difficult to understand is why the short-term solutions, such as removing the emergency services levy and stamp duty from insurance premiums, are not implemented quickly. When your home or business insurance premium has risen 300% in the last three years, a 30% saving will help with the cost of living.