In response to the scale of the Queensland flood, the Insurance Council of Australia (ICA) has established an expert panel of independent hydrologists to support policyholders and speed up the claims process.

The panel will be working closely with local government flood plain managers and state agencies to provide greater clarity and transparency when assessing the nature of the flood as it occurred across the state.

“A limited supply of hydrologists in Australia has the potential to slow down claims  processing following the QLD floods potentially causing a direct impact on flood victims seeking to make a claim,” said CEO of the ICA Mr Rob Whelan.

“The independent Hydrologists Panel engaged by the ICA will prepare plain English reports describing the causes, nature and severity of flooding that has occurred in QLD. These reports will describe the inundation at a high level for each major town and region and will be made available to policyholders.”

The reports will not be binding on insurers with regard to the individual determination of claims and will not prevent policyholders from accessing their own hydrology resources. The independent reports will simply provide an additional information resource to residents and insurers alike.

The insurance industry is funding the Hydrologist Panel at no extra cost to policyholders accessing these reports.

The work of the Hydrologist Panel will be critically dependant upon the timely release of relevant technical data from local councils, SEQ Water, the QLD State Government and the Bureau of Meteorology.