“[Insurance] is absolutely crippling,” Mr Entsch told The Newsport, stressing any solution would require co-operation between Federal and State Governments, as well as the Insurance Council.

Immediately after the election is settled, Mr Entsch said he would seek a round table discussion involving all three parties to facilitate discussion of the problems and propose solutions.

“There’s no doubt about it, there is market failure in northern Australia because of lack of competition,” he said. “There’s clearly gauging in the market, we’re getting refused based on postcodes. Our premiums are increasing by multiples of up to 10.”

“We’ve got to fix the insurance problem because people aren’t going to be able to invest if they can’t insure the assets that they’re going to invest in.”

Mr Entsch said he has “put forward a range of recommendations” he believes will address the problems, and emphasised “moving very quickly” after the election to organise the round table discussion. He is hopeful the governing bodies will “adopt some of these recommendations, and give some relief from the premiums.”

“I know people out there are doing it tough, and it’s a complex problem - there’s no quick fix,” Mr Gordon told The Newsport.

“There’s talk about [insurance] subsidisation or socialisation in Far North Queensland, but I don’t think that goes to the root of the problem. Any politician in their right mind who is genuine and sincere about fixing that problem - and I know the Member for Leichhardt has been advocating those sorts of measures - wouldn’t go down that path, wouldn’t open that door.”

“I think we need to understand risk a lot more; exclusively, risk here in Far North Queensland. When we’re able to start doing that, that’ll create an opportunity for new insurers to come into the market.

“At the moment, choice and competition is a big contributor to rising and high premiums. And there’s a lack of a very unique understanding of what we’re confronted with and dealing with here in Far North Queensland.

“If we can calibrate what the risks are to how insurers formulate the premiums, I think that’ll be a lot better.”

Mr Ryan has targeted “exorbitant” insurance premiums in his election campaign, proposing the option for a public and private partnership to operate the insurance company as a not-for-profit social enterprise.

He said premiums would be lower on a limited range of property-only insurance, with no contents insurance.

“Massive hikes in insurance premiums are hurting householders, farmers and graziers here in the north,” said Mr Ryan. “ Some insurance companies are simply refusing to quote on far northern properties.”

“Some people are paying up to $4000 insurance for a tiny little place.  This is four times higher than their southern counterparts. People have been ringing up insurance companies, and giving them a southern postcode just so they can compare prices.

“Redlining of every household, business and strata-title unit north of Rockhampton constitutes clear market failure that necessitates government intervention.”

He proposed setting aside $100 million “to seed fund a new government insurance company that underwrites the risk” and provides “real competition”.  

“The insurance situation is really quite complex,” Ms Kloot said.

“The first thing we need to understand is that insurance companies are businesses, they're not social enterprises. They're in the business of risk management. So that means risk management for themselves, as businesses, and also (what they're experts at) assessing risk within the environment and the community - whatever it is they're deciding to insure.”

“They [insurance companies] have got their fingers on the pulse of climate change, probably more than anyone else does, because they are involved in risk management. So to bring down insurance costs, they want the Government to invest in climate change mitigation. For every dollar the Government spends on climate change mitigation, it saves $2 in disaster damage.

“That's what the insurance companies have been calling for - whether it's post-flood, post-cyclone, post-fires - they're saying ‘If we can have the community ready for such distasters, and design a way to have the least effect of these disasters, we can manage the premiums much better.’ But as long as there's no infrastructural change, they can only apply the models they have. And the models they have shown, you've got to increase your premiums.

“Some people don't like the fact that insurance companies are putting it back on the Government - and therefore the taxpayer - but ultimately, that's what we need to do anyway. Not just for insurance, but ultimately to shore up the resilience of communities. We've got to start investing in mitigating climate change effects. Insurance is just one of the many symptoms of the problem of climate change.

“Far North Queensland has been identified as a [climate change] hot spot in Australia. Most people think that’s because of cyclones. But in a few months’ time, we're going to be looking at real fire issues, and one thing we are not usually prepared for (because we don't usually have this problem) is fire - if you go back over the history of Far North Queensland, there have been some massive fires. But we've lost the infrastructure and local knowledge to deal with that.”

"Raise an inquiry into the insurance industry." (sic)

1. I would stop the discrimination of insurance holders in FNQ with Insurance companies, and push for a fairer system to be enacted by parliament.
2. Publicise the insurance companies that are offering a fairer insurance rate; eg I personally have got insurance that is less than 50 per cent of what some other people are paying by simply shopping around.
3. Help people be informed what to do to get better insurance.