Disaster season is fast approaching and weather experts have warned us to brace ourselves for a wild few months.
The Bureau of Meteorology expects higher-than-normal cyclone activities in the north, while large swathes of NSW and Victoria are especially vulnerable to bushfire, following this year's big wet, according to the Bushfire and Natural Hazards Cooperative Research Centre.
Australians who fall victim to one of summer's suite of natural disasters may find the event frightening and the recovery bill even more so, if they're uninsured or under-insured for the damage Mother Nature can leave in her wake.
Hospitality executives Jonathan and Sharon Cauldwell were hit hard after their home on 3000 square metres in the Brisbane suburb of Kenmore was inundated in the 2011 floods.
The couple bought the property 15 years ago as a "forever" home, aware it had gone under in the 1974 floods but reassured by modelling which indicated it would be out of danger under similar rainfall conditions, following the opening of the Wivenhoe Dam in 1984.
Located 80 kilometres outside Brisbane, the dam was designed for flood mitigation and water supply purposes and has a storage capacity of 3.132 million mega-litres.
The Cauldwells were out of town when the big wet hit and raced home to move possessions to higher ground once it became apparent the house would flood.
"We were with CommInsure and obviously had done our homework and didn't feel there was any need for flood insurance so no, we weren't insured for flood, so the rebuild very much came at our own expense," Sharon says.
The couple had renovated two years earlier and faced the expensive task of stripping their four-bedroom home back to its bones and doing it all again. There was extensive damage to the pool, landscaping and gardens, while the driveway required replacing, at a cost of $25,000. Garage contents, including tools and the couple's second car, were also lost in the deluge.
Neighbours offered free accommodation and the couple rented shipping containers to store their salvaged possessions during the four-month rebuild.
Jonathan Cauldwell puts the total damages bill at $420,000. The exercise consumed the entirety of an inheritance from his mother – funds that had been earmarked for son Jeremy's school fees and retirement savings – and then some.
The couple have run the slide rule over their regular bills, crimped their spending on clothing, holidays and eating out and host homestay students to bring in additional income.
"Now I don't have that cash in the bank, we just have super, we don't have shares or anything like that, and we're going to be outlaying serious dollars on Jeremy with which I don't have a problem at all … my mindset is he will go [to private school] and I will go without," Jonathan says.
Understand your insurance
It's vital homeowners nationwide are aware of the natural threats they face and have cover to match the risk, Insurance Council of Australia spokesman Campbell Fuller says.
Home building insurance policies typically cover damage caused by storms, cyclones and bushfires and all Australian homes and businesses are able to buy insurance which covers flood damage. Consumers can obtain policies which do not cover flood but 95 per cent of home insurance policies purchased include it, according to the ICA.
Ensuring you're not just covered, but adequately covered, is critical. The cost of rebuilding rises each year and your sum insured should be reviewed annually to determine whether it's sufficient to cover the full cost of rebuilding, repairing or replacing buildings, contents and other assets.
Individuals in bushfire prone areas should be aware that simply replacing what was there is not an option if an older home which does not comply with current building regulations burns down, architect Rebekah Hurworth says.
The Bushfire Attack Level rating system is used to assess a location's risk of bushfire and new construction work must comply with regulations for that risk level.
Those with older homes in areas rated BAL-40, the second highest of the six ratings, may need to add up to 15 per cent to their replacement costs, Hurworth says. If you're in a BAL-Flame Zone, the highest rating, then expect this figure to be north of 20 per cent.
"There are quite a few companies who make a BAL-40 rated series of doors and windows but very few who make BAL-FZ ones," Hurworth says.
"My own house is in BAL-FZ and the big sliding doors on to my back deck have a $35,000 bushfire screen over them that comes down like a garage door and that's just one opening … When you're BAL-FZ you can't do decking boards at all, you have to have a tiled deck.
"I have not yet found one project home that can comply with a BAL-40 or BAL-FZ rating and most can't work in any but the lowest rating."
Recent years have seen insurers invest time and money developing mapping systems to enable them to assess risks for regions and individual properties more accurately, according to Sharanjit Paddam, principal at Deloitte Actuaries and Consultants and convenor of the Actuaries Institute's climate change working group.
The impact of climate change
Rising temperatures are expected to cause more frequent and severe weather events, which is likely to put upward pressure on premiums in the long term, Paddam says.
"When the storms happen they will have more rain in them because of higher humidity, they will have faster wind which will cause higher storms surges, which affect coastal property," he says.
"The storms will come further south, so cyclones will come further south because you need a certain temperature of the ocean to have a cyclone. If the temperatures go up two degrees that will happen further and further south … So, in the long term, with two degrees temperature rise, all the signs are pointing us towards saying, yes, there will be increases in insurance premiums.
"It's very hard to say exactly how much because there's a lot uncertainty around it … it's not exactly a straightforward thing but, generally speaking, that's what we're expecting."
For those who cop a costly blast from Mother Nature, keeping it in perspective and counting your blessings is vital, Sharon Cauldwell says.
"Our attitude to it was very much 'we're all alive, we're all OK' and our property today is worth no less than it was before because people have short memories about these things," she says. "And the reality is we've rebuilt and we're financially not in quite the same position as we were before."