THE STORY BEHIND OUR COVER

SOUTH ROCKHAMPTON FLOOD LEVEE

This year, our CGU Insurance and NRMA Insurance businesses supported Rockhampton Regional Council’s efforts to improve community resilience by working with Council to explore the likely impact that reducing flood risk in the community could have on insurance premiums.

Council’s proposal is to construct a nine kilometre long flood levee along the Fitzroy River to the south of Rockhampton city centre offering protection up to a 100 year flood event. It believes a well planned, designed and maintained levee would deliver a wide range of benefits to those who live, work and do business in areas affected by flooding, as well as the wider community.

The levee would protect over 1,200 properties including homes, commercial and rural properties, and schools, particularly in Gladstone Road, the lower CBD, Depot Hill, Port Curtis and Allenstown. It would also help protect the local economy. In the past four years alone, flooding across the Rockhampton region has resulted in a repair bill of $67 million.

By working with the technical experts in our Natural Perils Research Team and using insights from our industry-leading flood risk analysis system, CGU Insurance and NRMA Insurance were able to show the levee would potentially decrease the flood component of premiums for approximately 1,250 properties in Rockhampton, Port Curtis, Depot Hill and Allenstown. Our customers could see reductions to the flood component of their premium of between 11% and 76%, depending on the level of flood risk at the property and other factors such as sum insured and expected levels of damage.

By sharing our expertise, we have been able to give the local community a better understanding of the benefits and costs involved in the levee. In May 2014, Council applied for State and Australian Government funding to help it finance construction of the levee and was waiting for a response at the financial year end.