Australia’s late November convective storms seen as AU$2.663bn industry loss: PERILS

Severe convective storms and hail across Queensland and New South Wales, Australia in late November is initially estimated to have resulted in an insurance industry loss of AU $2.663 billion (around US $1.78bn) by catastrophe data aggregator PERILS AG.

The Queensland and New South Wales severe convective storms took place between the 21st and 27th November 2025.

As we’d reported before, the Insurance Council of Australia had recorded rising claims from this severe weather event, with hail a major driver of losses.

We’d also reported that Australian primary insurer Suncorp Group had revealed that it expected to tap into reinsurance support for its claims from this severe weather outbreak.

There’s a chance other insurers also call on reinsurance support from their excess-of-loss arrangements, while quota share reinsurance will of course result in claims paying support as well.

Based on loss data collected from insurers that suffered claims from the severe storms, PERILS AG’s initial estimate of insurance market losses is AU $2.663 billion, for claims from the property and motor hull lines of business.

PERILS noted that the late November severe convective storm outbreaks struck East Coast Australia, after optimal weather conditions occurred that drove extremely large hail, damaging winds, and intense localised rainfall as part of a multi-day thunderstorm outbreak that affected the region between Brisbane and Sydney.

The most impactful event occurred on November 24th in South East Queensland, with hailstones as large as 14 cm in diameter recorded and widespread damaging wind gusts, PERILS further explained.

Darryl Pidcock, Head of Asia Pacific & Cyber at PERILS, stated, “This event is the second billion-dollar SCS event within a month and ranks among the top five SCS events in the last 60 years in Australia. This was a significantly more destructive event than the October storms with hailstones the size of tennis balls or larger in some Brisbane suburbs causing substantial damage to roofs, facade claddings, solar panels and motor vehicles.

“Whilst there are differing views on whether there is an increase in the frequency of Australian multi-billion dollar SCS events, to provide some factual context, on a normalised as-if-today basis, Australia has already experienced five SCS events with industry losses exceeding AUD 1bn in the current decade, compared to three in the previous decade, none between 2000 and 2009, and two between 1990 and 1999.”

Previously, PERILS had also provided an initial insurance industry loss estimate for the severe convective storms (SCS) that struck Australia’s East Coast in late October, at AU $1.108 billion.