PERILS has trimmed its insurance industry loss estimate for the severe convective storms that tore across Queensland and New South Wales late last year, lowering the bill to AU $2.943 billion in its third estimate. The update covers storms that hit Australia’s east coast from November 21 to November 27, 2025, with the most intense activity arriving in the afternoon and early evening of November 24.
The revised figure, published in the current update, is only slightly below the AU $2.95 billion estimate issued in late February, but it remains well above the AU $2.663 billion initial estimate released in January. PERILS said the number is based on data gathered from impacted insurers and includes losses from property and motor hull lines of business.
The storms brought widespread hail, damaging winds and heavy rainfall across a broad corridor stretching from Brisbane in South East Queensland down to Sydney in New South Wales. South East Queensland took the worst of it on November 24, when hailstones reached up to 14 cm in diameter. The damage profile was uneven from the start, and the latest breakdown shows why: personal lines property losses account for 67% of the total, commercial property losses make up 21%, and motor losses represent 12%.
That split tells the story of how this event landed. Queensland accounted for 91% of the total industry loss, while New South Wales made up 8%. Darryl Pidcock said the industry losses were “quite stable” compared with the second loss report issued three months after the event, and he said motor claims accounted for a lower-than-usual share at 12% of total losses. He added that the storm damage largely struck residential properties and, to a lesser extent, commercial buildings, reflecting the combined force of destructive winds, intense rainfall and large hailstones.
The picture matters because these storms did not behave like a single, clean disaster. The same event that dropped giant hail over parts of South East Queensland also produced a loss pattern in which homes took the biggest hit and vehicle damage was far less dominant than insurers might normally expect. Pidcock said the detailed losses in the report, together with the storm intensities observed, show how severe convective storm events can differ materially in the way they affect insured property.
PERILS said it will publish an updated estimate of the insurance market loss from the event on November 27, 2026. For now, the third estimate suggests the market has a much clearer view of the damage than it did in January, but it also shows how quickly the shape of a catastrophe can shift once the claims data is pulled together.
Queensland vs New South Wales was never a contest of equal damage. Queensland carried the overwhelming burden, New South Wales absorbed a much smaller share, and the final bill remains anchored in homes, not cars.
