FLOODS HIT QUEENSLAND AND NORTHERN NSW

A miserable year for any insurer with interests in Australia has been completed with further severe rains in Queensland and northern New South Wales. Locally based financial services group Suncorp Metway said that the flooding had affected mostly remote rural areas, and that it would be a couple of weeks before any reliable loss estimate could be produced. On Friday the insurer reported that it had increased its number of claims staff to help policyholders hit by the flooding. Three new mobile Customer Response Teams have been sent to the affected areas. The company said that so far it had received 1,450 claims, but that this number was expected to rise significantly as the flood waters receded. Insurance Australia Group (IAG) said that it had received about 600 claims so far, but that it was too early to estimate the eventual total cost. Queensland State Premier Anna Bligh claimed that the economic cost would run into billions of dollars. "It's without precedent in our recorded history, with so many places in so many diverse parts of the state each affected so critically at once", she said. In what might be bad news for the first half of 2011, the traditional Queensland cyclone season is only just beginning. The tipping point for the latest floods was Cyclone Tasha, which hovered off the North-eastern coast of Queensland. Australia has already had its wettest September to November on record, although this has not stopped parts of Western Australia to be threatened by bushfires following a prolonged drought.