THE country's two biggest insurers are set to escape huge dents to their bottom lines despite the storms that ravaged south-east Queensland this week.
As the clean-up bill for individual claims heads towards $150 million, analysts said Suncorp and Insurance Australia Group had battened down their hatches in time to ward off perilous financial damage.
The Queensland Government declared Brisbane a natural disaster area following the storms, the worst to hit the city in 25 years.
The two insurers have already received about 13,000 claims between them, which are expected to result in payouts exceeding $100 million. And the claims are still coming, with another chunk expected by Monday as assessors work through the weekend.
At this rate, the insurance bill for the heavy rain and flooding in Brisbane and surrounds will approach the cost of hailstorm damage in Sydney almost a year ago.
But the two companies appear to be safe from the wider ramifications that made last financial year so bad for them.
Suncorp and IAG are expected to update the sharemarket on their exposures early next week and how the damage will effect their insurance profit margins.
But investors and analysts are increasingly confident that a repeat of last year's events - in which hundreds of millions of dollars were cut from the companies' profits in 2006-07 and 2007-08 - is not in the offing.
Industry sources said Suncorp might already be facing a bill of $80 million, which is well within the $240 million buffer it put in place to protect itself from major claims events after its horrendous 18 months.
The company also capped any losses from a single catastrophic event at $150 million by taking out its own insurance cover with re-insurers, a decision that will further shield its profits from damaging reductions this financial year.
Analysts at Credit Suisse estimated that Suncorp could absorb four such large weather events between now and the end of June and still stay within its insurance margin guidance of 10 per cent to 12 per cent for 2008-09.
The company had confirmed it was on track to hit that target at its annual meeting four weeks ago.
As for IAG, its exposure will be much lower than Suncorp, given the hold that its Brisbane competitor has on the state's insurance market. An IAG spokesman said the group had received about 5000 claims but it was too early to provide costs associated with them as the main priority was to help its customers.
Some analysts estimated IAG's payouts could approach $30 million.
IAG's shares closed unchanged yesterday at $3.50, while Suncorp fell 24c, to $6.91.
