24530 – APN Insurance Cost Pressure Index™

The APN Insurance Cost Pressure Index™ reads how fast the price of household insurance cover is rising: the year-on-year growth in the insurance prices recorded in the Consumer Price Index. Insurance is the channel through which physical climate risk reaches households and property owners most directly, as insurers reprice cover for storm, flood and bushfire exposure. Higher readings mean insurance costs are rising faster.

It is a national time series and a component of the APN Climate-Risk Asset Devaluation Index™ (24500).

The index level rises with prices generally, so the reading is its growth over the same quarter a year earlier, which also removes any seasonal pattern. The growth rate is standardised against its 2011–2025 history.

Insurance prices rose 6.02% over the year to June 2026, a little faster than their 2011–2025 average of 5.21%.

Insurance price growth ran between 14.0% and 16.4% a year from the June quarter 2023 to the September quarter 2024, peaking at 16.44% in March 2024, the fastest since March 2001. It slowed to 2.64% in September 2025, as the index briefly fell in the June quarter 2025, and has risen in each quarter since, to 6.02% in June 2026.

The highest growth on record came in 2000, when premiums rose 32.45% in the year to September, around the introduction of the GST. The lowest readings came in 2014, when the index fell slightly over the year.

• All insurance classes in the CPI. The class covers dwelling (building), home contents, comprehensive motor vehicle and compulsory third party insurance. No published index isolates home and contents insurance, so the reading includes motor insurance. Health insurance is not included.
• Premium prices, not claims. The CPI records the price of insurance cover, collected from insurers’ quotes with quality adjustment. It does not measure insured losses or the share of homes that are uninsured.
• Climate is one driver among several. Premiums also move with reinsurance costs, building costs and insurers’ returns. The index reads the price pressure, not its cause.
• Eight capital cities. Regional areas, where climate exposure and premium increases can be larger, are not separately covered.

The other components of the APN Climate-Risk Asset Devaluation Index™ (24500).