Introduction
The 2025 calendar year saw five natural hazards added to the Insurance Council of Australia’s (ICA) records of natural hazard catastrophe events across Australia. All five events were extreme weather-related catastrophes, featuring storms, hail, flooding and ex-tropical cyclones. Of note, several of these were compound events including two or more perils. Listed below are the insured loss and summary of these events.
QLD & NSW Severe Storms and Hail
The QLD & NSW Severe Storms were the most costly catastrophe of 2025. Between Sunday the 23rd to Monday the 24th of November strong winds and damaging hail impacted south-east Queensland. It resulted in 92,900 claims totalling $1.78 billion in insured losses.
The event was driven by high instability, heatwave conditions, and a strong storm environment, resulting in supercell thunderstorms. It brought giant hail (~5-10 cm on the 23rd and ~11-15 cm on the 24th), damaging to destructive winds (>100 km/h), heavy rainfall and intense lightning across Bribie Island, Logan, Scenic Rim, and areas south of Brisbane. Thousands of cars were written-off, properties and businesses sustained damaged roofs, broken windows and water ingress caused some roof collapses, crops were devastated, and infrastructure and utilities were disrupted.
Ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred
Ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred was a decaying tropical system transitioning into an east coast low–type system that impacted south-east Queensland and northern New South Wales, making landfall on the 7th of March. Despite resulting in 133,000 claims, more than the QLD & NSW Severe Storms and hail event, it had insured losses totalling $1.57 billion.
Although Alfred weakened from cyclone strength to an extratropical low before landfall, it remained a significant rain and wind-producing system, delivering strong winds (~100 km/h) similar to the QLD & NSW Severe Storm and Hail event but on a much wider scale, large storm tide, and extreme rainfall (365 mm in one day in Nambour). The main cause of structural damage was trees falling on structures, though some buildings in poorer condition were structurally damaged and wind-driven rain entered many buildings. Major flooding also occurred in northern NSW and south-east QLD, damaging hundreds to thousands of properties. As this event was multifaceted it makes it difficult to categorise as a single peril, though the ICA historical normalised catastrophe loss list classifies Ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred as a flood event.
See Risk Frontiers Briefing Note 514 for more information on this event.
Severe Spring Storms
The 2025 Severe Spring Storms impacted south-east Queensland. The supercell thunderstorms produced large to giant hail, damaging winds, and heavy rainfall. It resulted in 41,200 claims and caused $895 million in insured losses.
Thunderstorms proceeded for several days, the most significant of which was on the 26th of October. Brisbane, Logan, the Gold Coast, the Sunshine Coast and the surrounding areas experienced hail (~7-12 cm), wind gusts (>95-109 km/h), heavy rainfall (129 mm in one day at Oyster Creek), flash flooding, and very high lightning rates (over 4.2 million lightning over two days). Several days later the storms impacted the regions west of Brisbane, again bringing large hail (~7-9 cm). The event resulted in a large volume of hail-related motor and property claims, with damaged roofs, broken windows, and water ingress. There were also widespread power outages (>120,000 homes) contributing to business interruption claims.
North Queensland Floods
The 2025 North Queensland floods were a prolonged, rainfall-driven event affecting coastal and inland catchments from the Gulf Country through to the Herbert-Burdekin district and North Tropical Coast. It resulted in 11,800 claims totalling $316 million in insured losses.
The event was characterised by persistent monsoonal conditions, multiple low-pressure systems, and heavy rainfall over multiple days affecting already saturated catchments, with daily rainfall totals often exceeding 300 mm. It resulted in widespread riverine flooding and flash flooding, with impacts lasting several weeks. Homes and businesses in floodplains were inundated and there were significant agricultural impacts.
Mid North Coast and Hunter floods
The 2025 Mid North Coast and Hunter floods were a major, multi-day rainfall and riverine flooding event affecting the Manning, Hastings, Macleay and Nambucca catchments. It resulted in 14,700 claims totalling $276 million in insured losses.
Between 22-25 May, an Easterly Trough Low (ETL) triggered severe weather along the New South Wales Mid North Coast. The Bureau of Meteorology reported that much of the area between Taree and Port Macquarie experienced four times its average monthly rainfall. Notably, Taree and Wingham more than doubled their previous rain records for May (>700 mm), and floodwaters on the Manning River at Taree exceeded the one-in-500-year Annual Recurrence Interval (ARI). Homes and businesses were inundated with an estimated 10,000 homes damaged, including ~800 properties left uninhabitable. There were widespread power outages, key transport routes were closed, and there were significant agricultural impacts. Though this event was record-breaking, insured losses likely remained low due to the lack of flood insurance in the area, with flood insurance being prohibitively expensive, difficult to access, or entirely unavailable for many households and small businesses in the region.
See Risk Frontiers Briefing Note 518 & 519 for a detailed summary on this event and insights from the field.
Total Cost of 2025
The total insured losses for 2025 were $4.84 billion. Based on the ICA historical normalised catastrophe loss list, 2025 is the third most costly year in the last decade for natural hazards, behind 2022 ($8.25 billion) and 2020 ($4.96 billion) (see Figure 1). This exceeds the average annual loss of the last decade of $3.59 billion.
For the events in 2025, the QLD & NSW Severe Storms and Hail are the 5th most costly disaster in terms of insured loss in the last decade. Meanwhile, Ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred is the 8th most costly. For comparison, the event with the greatest loss in the last decade is the 2022 SE Queensland and NSW Floods, with an insured loss of $6.38 billion.
Of note is the prevalence of significant events and losses in the last 4-7 years categorised as flood in the ICA historical normalised catastrophe loss list. Over the last 10 years flood events have insured losses of $17.3 billion, equating to 48% of losses from all natural hazards (see Figure 2). In recent years Australia’s weather has been dominated by a small number of recurring large-scale climate drivers and synoptic patterns. This spike in flooding is the result of these systems lining up unusually often and persisting for long periods.
Australia had a rare “triple-dip” La Niña from 2020–2023, and again in 2025. La Niña is characterised by strengthened easterly trade winds which pushed warm water and moisture toward eastern Australia. This favours increased seasonal rainfall totals resulting in persistently wet catchment with reduced drying of soil between events.
Compounding the effects of the La Niña was a negative Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) in 2022 and 2024. The negative IOD corresponds to warmer waters near Indonesia, resulting in more moisture flowing into Australia. This brings increased widespread inland and southern rainfall.
Additionally, there have been frequent moisture-rich systems such as East Coast Lows (ECL) and monsoon lows. Many of these events have been slow-moving or stalled, producing record multi-day rainfall totals. Several of these events have been classified as flood, though there is a blurry boundary between flooding originating from storm (including ECLs), ex-tropical cyclones, and tropical cyclones.
Disclaimer
All loss figures are derived from the February 2026 ICA historical normalised catastrophe loss list, with the 2025 event claim numbers and losses updated with revised figures from the ICA’s datahub website.
Several events are multifaceted and can be difficult to categorise into a single peril. The peril type listed in the ICA historical normalised catastrophe loss list has been used as the classification for each event.
