People in the ACT are more worried about the growing impact of seriously bad weather on property than people in the rest of Australia, according to one of the country's big insurers.
The NRMA surveyed people across Australia and found that "ACT residents continue to be most worried that wild weather is becoming more frequent and severe".
On average, the insurer's research found that just under three quarters of respondents nationally 72 per cent) were worried about the impact of wild weather compared with four-fifths (82 per cent) in the ACT.
On top of that, the number of Canberrans being concerned about the increasing frequency and severity of bad weather is rising, according to the NRMA.
The insurers break down where the recent claims for "wild weather" damage to cars and homes came from:
- Reid, Campbell and Fadden were the hardest hit suburbs in the ACT. The impact of wild weather was relatively evenly felt across the nation's capital with claims received in 88 ACT suburbs
- More than a third of all ACT home claims were the result of storms and severe weather this summer
- There were 299 claims for wild weather damage in the ACT this summer:
- 261 severe weather home claims
- 38 severe weather motor claims
- 261 severe weather home claims
- 38 severe weather motor claims
The NRMA is concerned that home-buyers across the country seem to show more interest in how good the cafes and restaurants are near a home they might buy than whether it is vulnerable to flood or fire.
"We are asking people to reprioritise their thinking from looking at nice cafes or restaurants to making sure their property is going to be safe," NRMA Insurance General Manager for Direct Claims, Luke Gallagher, said.
He advised people to use emergency services websites and other resources to work out the risk to a property from flooding and/or fires.
Insurance companies, including the NRMA, have battalions of mathematicians and other assessors of risk. Mr Gallagher said that the NRMA's experts indicated that severe weather was likely to get more severe and more frequent.
He thought that a lot of people didn't understand basic concepts to do with risk: "For example, one common misconception is that a one-in-a-hundred flood risk means a flood will only happen every hundred years, when in fact, this means there's a one percent chance of a significant flood in any year."
The NRMA's insurance arm runs what it calls a Wild Weather Tracker. It showed that nationally "only 26 per cent who have recently moved or are planning to relocate have researched their new property's vulnerability to wild weather risks".
In the survey, 500 residents were asked about their preparedness for damaging weather. The numbers have fallen.
As mentioned, here's a comparison stat from this quarterly/seasonal research (survey of 500 ACT residents).
In the summer which has just ended, 33 per cent of ACT survey respondents said they had taken steps to prepare their home and family for severe weather or a natural disaster in the last three months. A year ago, the figure was 46 per cent.
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