Property Resilience and Exposure Programme

There is often an inconsistency between insurance industry hazard mapping and government generated hazard mapping used by consent authorities for development controls and community risk education. The inconsistency of this data, and sometimes lack of data, can complicate the industry’s capacity to accurately price risk at property level. This in turn leads to challenging affordability issues (as uncertainty is factored in) or the reliance upon alternative flood mapping sources that differ from that used at a local level, causing confusion for consumers if assessments vary from those undertaken by the local authority. Aligned with this problem is the lack of a consistent methodology for the assessment of predicted economic loss at property level in order to inform mitigation cost benefit analysis exercises.

In a strategic context, there is a need for the insurance industry to demonstrate the relationship between hazard exposure, building vulnerability and risk premiums, whilst also providing assistance to government mitigation programs through identifying possible affordability gains as a result of various mitigation options being considered.

PREP is creating an accredited toolset (based on the Building Resilience Rating Tool (BRRT) for use by local government that consistently calculates the resilience of existing buildings in the form of a “heat” map. PREP will identify areas where homes are at greater risk than others (through poor design and building controls), and identify those that may require high priority mitigation and intervention in order to reduce the potential impact of the hazard on that community.

Ultimately, local governments employing PREP will benefit their communities by making best efforts to achieve risk based pricing for properties in their communities, and therefore equitable pricing of insurance premiums for houses that offer low risk.

The PREP programme was piloted in Lake Macquarie last year, continues with the development of the training modules and framework, and will be available for engagement with local government from May 2014.