Only a year after losing their homes to floods in parts of Australia's north eastern coast of Queensland, people are moving into new houses built on or near the same plots.
"Locals call this place 'Brownsville', that's how dry this place was. So it is unfair for insurers to react in such an extreme manner after just one event. This was a once-in-a-500-year flood, it won't come again in my lifetime," the tradesman, who would only be identified by his surname Cullen, said.
That divergence is echoed across regions in developed countries which have been hit by floods, forest fires or other extreme weather-related events linked to climate change and is worrying regulators and industry executives. Among those most concerned is Larry Fink, boss of the world's largest investor, BlackRock, who warned in his annual letter to company boards in January about the risks to banks if insurance dries up. Fink said banks may no longer be able to offer 30-year mortgages, which he described as"a key building block of finance", if fire or flood insurance are not available.
"As a banker we have a presumption with our customer that insurance will generally be available and affordable. That's changing," said Mathew Murphy, head of social & environmental risk at Australian and New Zealand Banking Group.