The Insurance Council of Australia has confirmed that insurance losses from last month's cyclone and flooding have reached US$528mn, with more than 45,000 claims. Insured losses are thought to increase even more with Swiss Re estimating earlier this month that the total insured market losses from the cyclone would reach US$1.3bn. Tropical Cyclone Debbie made landfall on 28 March as a category 4 hurricane; making it the strongest cyclone to hit Australia since 2015. The eye of the storm hit Airlie Beach on the north Queensland coast, with estimated 10-minute sustained winds of close to 200km/h. The main disaster zone stretched more than 990 km from the point of landfall, reaching northern New South Wales. Queensland's Treasurer Curtis Pitt said that the loss attributed to cyclone Debbie through damage to public infrastructure and property alongside compensation payouts to homeowners and producers would be an estimated $1.3bn.
