Insurance Council of Australia

Building resilience

Climate Resilient Homes Toolkit

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Climate Resilient Homes Toolkit

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Status: Complete

Overview

Climate change is exacerbating extreme weather events such as bushfires, floods, and droughts. Communities experiencing the effects of extreme weather events today, will become increasingly exposed as these events worsen.

The Canberra Region Joint Organisation (CRJO) brought together the ICA, Resilience NSW and the Minderoo Foundation and contracted Edge Environment to develop a Bushfire-Resilient Housing Toolkit for residents and Councils in the ACT region. This toolkit provides guidance and advice to homeowners wishing to take action to improve the resilience of their homes.

The toolkit has been developed to be a scalable asset to launch to the whole of Australia. The action taken by residents and Councils will develop the resilience of our housing stock against climate. It can be accessed here.

Partnerships

  • Canberra Regional Joint Organisation of Councils
  • Resilience NSW
  • Minderoo Foundation
  • Edge Environment

Useful links

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icon Resilience NSW
icon Minderoo Foundation

Where we build, what we build

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Where we build, what we build

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Status: Complete

Overview

To improve Australia’s housing stock to account for local natural hazards, systematic and quantitative analysis is needed.

The ICA has supported the Southern and Hills Local Government Association on this project, designed to increase the resilience of housing in a changing climate. The project focused on the economic benefits of climate ready homes and provides evidence to help adapt homes and map hazards.

Top takeaways from the report

  1. The building stock in the region varies significantly in terms of its resilience to natural hazards
  2. Vulnerable housing leads to higher living costs
  3. There is sufficient information available to know how to build climate ready homes
  4. The changing cost of insurance will influence how we build new homes and retrofit old homes
  5. Poor quality natural hazard data impacts insurance premiums
  6. The benefits of climate ready homes outweigh the costs for both new builds and retrofits
  7. The regional net present value of immediately retrofitting all 2,956 homes in regional hazard hotspots is estimated at over $72 million
  8. A climate ready home standard should be developed
  9. Vulnerable housing results in lower community resilience

The final report can be accessed here.

Partnerships

  • Disaster Resilient Australia
  • Government of South Australia
  • Southern and Hills Local Government Association

Useful links

Help in a disaster
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icon Where We Build, What We Build project
icon Southern and Hills Local Government Association

Green Star Homes

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Green Star Homes

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Partnership and Status: Complete

Overview

Buildings have an enormous impact on the health and wellbeing of our planet and ourselves. They offer an opportunity to reduce the impact to our environment through sustainable living.

The ICA partnered with The Green Building Council of Australia (GBCA) on the Future Homes Initiative. The GBCA has developed the Green Star for Homes Standard to ensure Australian homes are ready to adapt to extreme weather challenges.

There are two parts to Green Star for Homes:

  1. Sets clear simple actions and targets for single family dwellings across health, efficiency, climate resilience and energy source.
  2. Introduces verification practices to be an effective, consistent and efficient mark of quality for your customers

The final Green Star Standard can be accessed here.

Partnerships

  • The Green Building Council of Australia
  • Emergency Management Australia (EMA) – Mitigation and Risk Sub-Committee (MaRS)

Useful links

Help in a disaster
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icon Future Homes Initiative

Minderoo Foundation – The Resilience Blueprint

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Minderoo Foundation – The Resilience Blueprint

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Following the devastating bushfires experienced in Australia in the 2020 bushfire season, the Minderoo Foundation established a $70 million Fire Fund with three streams of activity: response, recovery, and resilience. The ICA has been working across all three streams with a particular focus on resilient communities.

Minderoo launched the resilience stream in April 2020 and developed a partner network for the development of a Resilience Blueprint. The Blueprint will provide an ongoing evidence base for the program’s work, including its outcome-focused missions.

Minderoo is an enabler, working with partners across industry, government, philanthropy, and research to lift national physical resilience; the intent is that ICA projects will be leveraged and amplified where they most align with the “Minderoo Missions”.

The Resilience Blueprint was launched in September 2020 and the ICA will continue to support Minderoo and their resilience missions.

Objective

The objective is for Australia to be the global leader in bushfire and flood resilience by 2025.

Relationship/Partnership

Minderoo and their partner ecosystem.

Measures of Success

More resilient communities – detailed and specific mission-based metrics to be determined.

Mindaroo logo

Useful links

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icon www.moneysmart.gov.au

QFES – Severe Wind Hazard Assessment Queensland project

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QFES – Severe Wind Hazard Assessment Queensland project

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Queensland Fire and Emergency Services (QFES) – Severe Wind Hazard Assessment Queensland (SWAQ) project. 

A Study of Severe Wind Risk and Mitigation across the Coastal Councils of Noosa Shire, Sunshine Coast, Moreton Bay, Redland City, Brisbane City, and the City of Gold Coast.

This project builds on a previous project conducted by QFES, the Severe Wind Hazard Assessment project, and will improve understanding of the wind risk associated with the severe wind environment of South East Queensland across, and in partnership with, six local government areas. 

These local governments are: Noosa Shire Council, Sunshine Coast Council, Moreton Bay Regional Council, Redland City Council, Brisbane City Council, and the Council of the City of Gold Coast. 

Objective

The aim is to develop information that will inform future strategies to manage and reduce severe wind risk in these six local government areas. We will also look to replicate and scale across other local governments as the project matures. The project will has a duration of two years (completion end 2022) and be a collaboration between Geoscience Australia, James Cooke University and the University of Queensland. 

Relationship/Partnership

The project collaborators and key stakeholders are: 

  • Geoscience Australia − Project leader and research partner 
  • James Cooke University, Cyclone Testing Station − Specialist building research partner 
  • QFES − State Government EM agency, sponsor, and coordinator 
  • Insurance Council of Australia − Representative body, sponsor, and research partner 
  • Suncorp – Research partner and sponsor
  • Insurance Australia Group - Research partner 
  • University of Queensland − Research partner 
  • Noosa Shire Council − Local Government stakeholder 
  • Sunshine Coast Council − Local Government stakeholder 

Measures of Success

Established relationships with emergency managers and a dialogue about optimal solutions for physical mitigation options across the local government areas.

Queensland Government logo

Useful links

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icon www.moneysmart.gov.au

Cyclone and Flood Vulnerability Project

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Cyclone and Flood Vulnerability Project

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Cyclones and floods will increase in frequency and intensity in a climate changed future. This project uses aggregated claims and loss data to provide empirical evidence for the vulnerability of modern homes (built post 2000).

Appropriate land-use planning, building codes and construction quality, coupled with affordable insurance is a foundation for community resilience to natural disasters.

Damage investigations following tropical cyclones have shown that there is positive change in performance for life safety robustness of housing, built after the code changes (post-1980) across the tropical cyclone regions of Australia. However, achieving life safety does not necessarily result in protection of property or reduced economic loss from natural disasters. Investigations of damage to buildings following severe weather events shows continuing problems with the performance of contemporary engineered buildings, particularly with respect to water ingress.

Objective

The project aggregated claims and loss data from ICA members and has developed empirical evidence regarding the vulnerability of modern homes to cyclone and flood.

Relationship/Partnership

James Cooke University, Cyclone Testing Station and Risk Frontiers were commissioned to conduct the project. Claims and Loss Data was provided by the following ICA Members: RACQ, Allianz, IAG, Suncorp, QBE, and Westpac.

Measures of Success

Report is used to provide evidence for a change to the building code in 2025.

Useful links

Help in a disaster
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icon www.moneysmart.gov.au
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Acknowledgement of Country

We acknowledge the Traditional Owners on the many lands the people of the ICA reside and work. We respect and honour Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders Elders past, present, and emerging.
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