MARCH 31, 2015: WE"VE asked for affordable insurance. We haven't got it.Instead we've seen insurance premiums double, triple, even increase ten-fold in the space of a year or two.Now we're taking action on exploring options for reducing home, contents and strata insurance premiums in Northern Australia.A Northern Australia Insurance Premiums taskforce will be established as soon as possible to look at improving affordability and this in turn will address concerns around under insurance, ease cost-of-living pressures for families and support the economic development of Northern Australia.There will be considerable investment into feasibility studies for two main options for insurance in Northern Australia – an insurance ‘mutual’ which takes away much of the profit-driven focus of the major insurers, or a catastrophe reinsurance pool.Insurance costs in North Queensland are five times higher than in Sydney and Melbourne for strata insurance and two-and-a-half times higher for home insurance.Some examples included a house in Glenella rising from $1992 to $8133 to insure, and a house in South Andergrove jumping from $1128 to $4272.As a member of the Government’s Developing Northern Australia committee, which is chaired by Leichardt MP Warren Entsch, I am thrilled to see further action on resolving this issue which continues to impact property owners in the North. The taskforce was signed off by Assistant Treasurer Josh Frydenberg, with the support of Prime Minister Tony Abbott. GET ON COMPARISON WEBSITEA North Queensland Home Insurance website has been launched to assist North Queensland consumers in their home insurance search. This has been prepared on behalf of the Government by the corporate regulator, ASIC.It provides comparison information on available home building and contents policy features and premiums for nearly 800 suburbs and towns north of Rockhampton.“This is another initiative to tackle high insurance costs. You will find the website at www.nqhomeinsurance.gov.auInformation is currently provided about policies offered by eight insurers (comprising 11 home insurance brands):

• Allianz
• ANZ  (ANZ and OnePath brands)
• CommInsure
• IAG  (NRMA brand)
• QBE
• RACQ
• Suncorp (AAMI, Apia and Suncorp brands)
• Westpac

The website does not provide quotes, but rather indications of premiums. Information about policies offered by Youi will be available in May 2015.  Information for Suncorp brands is available for about two thirds of the locations covered, and more will be available in due course.