Consumers can expect more subdued growth in their annual home insurance bills, though an industry expert warns elevated prices are now baked into the system.
Insurance Council of Australia chief executive officer Andrew Hall told the National Press Club insurance markets were facing a "perfect storm" of increasingly volatile weather, geopolitical instability and cybersecurity threats.
"Risk is being repriced," he said on Thursday.
Reinsurance costs - basically insurance for insurers - was increasing around the world to reflect more frequent natural disasters and other risks.
The result has been higher insurance costs for everyone - the Actuaries Institute recorded a 28 per cent increase in the median home insurance premium in the year to March - and even steeper hikes for those those living in flood-prone areas.
Yet Mr Hall said consumers could expect more moderate price growth, though premiums were unlikely to return to the relative lows of 2015 and 2016.
"We've got elevated costs now baked into the system and so consumers do need to adjust around all of that," he said.
The industry figure walked through a range of short and long term solutions to the problem of insurance affordability and accessibility, with many financially-stretched households going without entirely.
This included better planning to limit home building in flood plains and other risky zones, and more investment in disaster mitigation.
More immediately, he called on governments to scrap insurance stamp duties and other taxes that drive up costs.
Mr Hall also touched on the federal government's $10 billion cyclone reinsurance scheme aimed at improving the affordability and accessibility of insurance in cyclone-prone areas, by bringing down the cost of reinsurance.
The scheme was introduced by the Morrison government and continued under Labor, though Mr Hall warned it may have been oversold by the former government.
Claims of 40 per cent reductions "probably needed an asterix" as such sizeable price declines would only apply to a handful of high-risk properties.
"But across the board, they'll be relatively minor and the reason for that is what the government scheme is discovering, is that there was no profit sitting in the reinsurance of cyclones in Australia."
Insurable cyclone events were "very expensive", he said.
"It's an important scheme - we have to see how it works, how it plays out, but sometimes these pools don't fully deliver on their promise."
