Could climate change make it harder to get insurance in Australia?
ABCAt the moment, Townsville is more or less underwater and large parts of Tasmania are on fire. Key points: There were anecdotal reports of premiums reaching $30,000 after the 2017 Lismore floods There is a serious risk some places could become too disaster-prone to insure, according to an expert Taxpayers could end up footing the bill Summer in Australia has always been extreme, but some corners of the country are experiencing climate-driven disasters that are worse than ever — and more of them every year. "When you have a disastrous event, like whether it's a flood or a bushfire, you don't expect it to keep continuing," Mr Vincent said. "We will get to a certain point, somewhere between say 3 degrees or 4 degrees above pre-industrial levels, and a world like that will see situations where cities, entire coastlines, do become uninsurable," he said. Mr Merzian said in that case "the basic safety net that's provided by the private sector just becomes too prohibitively expensive".