Weather fatigue danger

INSURANCE claims have hit record levels because of the increasing frequency of extreme weather events — and homeowners’ reluctance to check the outlook.

At a time when it’s never been more important to prepare for the worst, the failure to do so is being traced back to the increasing number of Aussies who have stopped looking at weather forecasts.

Our climate has been so lousy in 2022, one in four of us are no longer tuning in to find out what tomorrow’s weather will bring.

And you can see why: it basically never stops raining. Bureau of

Meteorology records show there was not a single dry day across greater Sydney and greater Melbourne in September, while Adelaide had just one day of zero rainfall. Brisbane managed eight dry days.

Allianz Australia found almost one in five Aussies (18 per cent) say the constant poor weather is making them feel fatigued, and a quarter (25 per cent) say they no longer tune in to the weather report.

But it goes beyond mere feelings of discontent: according to Allianz, ‘weather fatigue’ is leading to a rise in the number of people who have switched off and are no longer making adequate preparations for extreme weather events.

“Catastrophe claims are up about 81 per cent in the 2022 [severe weather] season, compared to 2019, and of those about 38 per cent of the home claims are related specifically to weather,” said Mark O’Connor, Allianz’s national manager for claims.

“We’re seeing people become blasé to the weather,” he said. “It’s stopping them from preparing themselves and their properties.”

While an insurance policy will generally still “kick in,” regardless of a homeowner’s level of preparedness, Mr O’Connor said, many were finding severe weather incidents so much worse because they didn’t take simple precautions.

While many Australians are feeling despondent about the continuing bad weather, the Allianz research also picked up a strong degree of scepticism about forecasts, with 38 per cent saying they are “usually wrong”. Some survey respondents said “looking out the window” was more reliable.

The cost of extreme weather was laid bare in a recent Insurance Council overview. Eleven catastrophes have been declared since 2019, driven in large part by the La Niña weather pattern, incurring $13 billion in damages. The February/March floods in NSW and south East Queensland cost $5.2 billion, while severe storms in SA, Victoria and Tasmania in October 2021 cost $848 million.