QLD Insurance on Flood affected properties

I haven't had any properties directly affected by flooding so maybe I don't know what I don't know but I can take Rockhampton as a point of reference.
You can have properties in Park Avenue which are well away from potential flood water or others much closer to the Fitzroy river. I don't believe I pay much if any of a premium for other properties around Rockhampton 4701 or 4700 because houses in Depot Hill go under water nor should I.
I have one in Brisbane near a creek, the flood maps indicate some overland flow down the street yet this property and others in the street were high and dry throughout 2011 and 1974 from what I can ascertain. Others in the suburb have been affected yet my insurance policy there is sub 1k, and no its not under insured.
Where I have seen more of a blanket policy applied is premium increases post cyclones, probably about to receive a nice little premium increase in Rocky after their first cyclone in 40 years?

 

Nothing I said contradicts this. I didn't claim that properties in the same suburb would have the same price; that's clearly untrue.

 

Actually, I concede that my point may be outdated. Prior to the Brisbane 2011 floods, flood map data had to be purchased, hence why a lot of insurers didn't cover flood (not having data to accurately assess risk), and a lot of other insurers just guesstimated flood risk by postcode.

The combination of my observations that a) a lot more insurers are covering flood now, and b) at least in Brisbane, property-specific data is now available free of charge, leads me to think that there's been some sea change (see what I did there?) in flood insurance, and it's now assessed per property.

I agree with @HUGH72 that other risks are far more likely to be postcode-aggregated, whereas flood risk probably is property-specific now.

And noting that, I must go back and ask for a revision on our premium... surely having elevated our new home 3m higher must be worth something of a reduction!

 

Hi see_change, which insurance company do you use? do you use the same company for all your qld IPs or different companies ?

 

Hi Perp,

I previously thought that flood insurance was assessed per property hence why deliberately found properties that were actually inundated in both the 1974 & 2011 floods to test their premium price ....surprisingly Wespac gave me a quote of just $99 per month (similar cost to other properties in same area but non-flooded streets) whereas there are other properties located in high & dry non-flooded areas are a few dollars more expensive!!

Makes me wonder if these insurance are reliable to claim for coverage in the event a disaster actually occurs.

 

wow....i didn't know it was possible to raise a house 3m higher!!! this must be on stumps ???

 

Not the same house! (Though that's possible with a Queenslander.) We knocked down our brick-and-tile-on-slab home after it was structurally damaged in the 2011 floods, and rebuilt a lightweight (fibre cement and Colourbond) home 3m above ground.

But we got insurance based just on address; I didn't even tell them we were a highset, so presumably our premium should be lower if we tell them that.

 

was the original home completely inundated and how high did the water level get ? hope the insurance company covered you for the complete replacement cost as it must have been quite expensive...

 

The original home was inundated to around 1.8m. We had a huge fight with the insurer for nearly 3 years, as they tried to claim that the structural damage - which accounted for the bulk of the cost of repairs - had only happened gradually over time, rather than being due to the flood. Fortunately 4 structural engineers and the Ombudsman disagreed, but we nearly went broke and insane fighting. Grrr.

We got a payout of around 93% of the cost of repairs. We elected to take it as cash and demolish and re-build. We probably lost around $200-300K in equity by doing that, because we had to cover over $50K rent at alternative premises (they only had to cover our rent up to the point of settlement, not to the time when the property would have been repaired - another grrr), and demolition cost $40K, and then it cost more to build a high-set, etc.

But what were our alternatives?

We could have sold the uninhabitable house for land-value only, but a) you actually get less than land-only value because somebody else has to pay the $40K to clear the site, and they factor in the muck-around factor of doing that and reduce the price by $50K+. and b) then we'd have to find somewhere else to live, and we bought here - right near our sons' high school - when they were born, so that they could walk to school. And we like the location for other reasons, and have good relationships with many of our neighbours! So we didn't want to move.

We could have repaired the previous house, but then we'd still have a flood-prone house and would have had to sell, because from an emotional perspective, I don't think there's any way we could have gone back to living at ground level on this site; we'd never feel safe.

So even though it wasn't cheap, we're happy with our decision to re-build; we've long wanted to build our own home, we've got a beautiful result (IMHO), and we're free of the fear of flood.

Posted some pics here, for anybody interested: https://propertychat.com.au/community/threads/perp.604/page-2#post-17282 cc @Toon, @monalisa (since I saw your likes)

 

That's a beautiful new home Perp turns out not too bad after all since you got the payment from insurance to build your own home which you had long wanted to do anyway (and would have to cover rent elsewhere during the construction process anyway) plus you get to stay in the same desirable neighbourhood with no fear of future flood which is priceless Has insurance premium sky rocketed for you after the flood incident ?

I was gobsmacked that Wespac charges only about $1.2k for properties that were actually flooded and damaged in both the 1974 & 2011 disasters, even cheaper than non-flooded ones elsewhere

 

Our old insurer wanted to increase from $2K to $6K pa. Shopped around and got better coverage with another insurer for around $2.5K. That's OK, I reckon. (Though that's before I told them we were 3m off the ground; may be able to negotiate lower based on discoveries as a result of this thread.)

 

Nice one Perp can I ask who you ended up with?

 

Comminsure. But policies really vary between states and between flats and houses etc., so they may not be good for you. I used this tool to develop a shortlist of policies that provided good coverage, then got quotes on those: http://www.canstar.com.au/home-insurance/

 

Funny you should mention them!! I am a CBA wealth customer and my broker mentioned i am entitled to discounts on insurances as such. I got quotes for some insurances and they were significantly cheaper for most apples for apples policy comparisons I did.