Insurers are facing a surge in claims following severe storms along Australia's east coast but the cost looks set to fall far short of the billions of dollars' worth of damage wreaked by extreme weather a year ago.
The Insurance Council of Australia said insurers had received more than 11,150 claims across Queensland and NSW by Monday afternoon, with estimated insured losses of $38 million.
While that sounds like a lot, Suncorp and IAG each paid out more than $1 billion in natural disaster claims in the previous financial year, a period that included the April 2015 storms that blasted Sydney and the Hunter Valley.
"While it is still too early to provide detail on the total number of claims, at this stage we don't believe the impact of this weather system on our claim volume will be as severe as the storm that battered NSW in April last year," a QBE Insurance Australia spokesperson said.
The weather system that hit Queensland and NSW before heading south to cause flooding in Tasmania has moved faster than that which sat off Sydney and the Hunter last year.
Also helping was an absence of damaging hailstorms.
"So far most claims concern typical storm damage, such as roof and gutter damage, and damage due to fallen trees. There are also reports of cars being flooded in some locations," acting ICA chief executive Karl Sullivan said.
Mr Sullivan added that insurers expect the number of claims to rise as evacuated residents return to their homes to assess damage over coming days.
The impact should be manageable for insurers, with IAG so far fielding about 2,000 calls compared to more than 30,000 in April 2015.
Nonetheless, things aren't all rosy for the insurers as their share prices took a predictable battering from wary investors.
IAG closed down 2.2 per cent at $5.72 on Monday while Suncorp was down 1.7 per cent to $12.56 and QBE ended down 1.6 per cent at $12.21, all against a positive day for the broader market.
