The insurance industry has rejected complaints about its flood policies, after some homeowners were refused compensation.
As the clean up continues, the number of insurance claims is rising.
In Queensland alone, there have been 12,000 claims with a total value of more than $400m
“It's early days still in a number of parts of Queensland for people to put in their claims, so we do think it will continue to rise,” Rob Whelan of the Insurance Council said.
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But there's anger that some will be denied insurance payouts either because they weren't insured, or because they weren't covered for floods where a river breaks its banks.
Mr Whelan says some people are complacent, and don't bother to read their policy.
“Well if they don't have the appropriate cover then I suggest they should have read their product description statement,” he told SBS.
The Queensland Government, meanwhile, is trying to help where it can.
“One of the issues we are dealing with at the moment is providing free legal advice to residents who have questions about the extent of their insurance coverage", Treasurer Andrew Fraser said.
The Federal Treasurer has flagged changes to flood cover, but the insurance sector has rejected proposals for a compulsory flood insurance scheme, and insurance companies aren't the only ones being urged to be more generous.
Some business groups are lobbying the government to dig deep and to not put its planned budget surplus ahead of the recovery effort.
They say jobs and businesses need to be protected.
"No one will thank the government or the state government by having a surplus if they lose their job and their business shuts down", the Australian Industry Group's Heather Ridout said.
"So we've got a here-and-now issue to deal with and we need to address that properly and comprehensibly," he continued.
The government isn't ruling out spending cuts or a tax to help it deliver its promise of a budget surplus in 2012/13, and Prime Minister Julia Gillard says Labor will have to change its priorities.
“You betcha," the PM said.
"And they are the difficult decisions of the days ahead but we will do what we need to rebuild Queensland."
Underscoring the financial impact of the floods, the latest Westpac - Melbourne Institute index shows consumer sentiment has fallen, which Westpac puts down to people worrying about the financial impact of the floods.
