Ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred impacted southeast Queensland and northeast New South Wales between 6 and 11 March 2025, bringing heavy to intense rainfall, damaging to destructive wind gusts and abnormally high tides. Two months on, the Suncorp Disaster Management Centre team share an analysis of the impact and recovery.
Share
A post-event assessment report released today by Suncorp illustrates the insurer’s dedication to providing crucial support to customers before, during, and after extreme weather events.
The Beyond the Event report details the impact and recovery efforts following ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred (ex-TC Alfred), revealing not only the widespread damage caused by the system's relentless rain, destructive winds, and storm surges, but also the scale of Suncorp’s coordinated response.
“This report demonstrates how our investment to build a best-in-class Disaster Management Centre (DMC) is enabling us to mobilise faster and reach more customers sooner,” Suncorp CEO Steve Johnston said.
“The DMC strengthens our capacity to proactively communicate and rapidly deploy our specialist customer support teams, builders and assessors with speed and urgency when disasters strike, while our fleet of Mobile Disaster Response Hubs can scale up on-the-ground support.”
As of 6 May, Suncorp has received 31,140 claims related to ex-TC Alfred, including 28,404 home insurance claims – many for damage to roofs, gutters, and properties impacted by fallen trees and branches.
More than 9,730 claims were lodged for food spoilage caused by prolonged power outages inflicted by ex-TC Alfred’s destructive winds.
Brisbane was the hardest hit region, accounting for 52 per cent of claims, followed by the Gold Coast (34.9 per cent) and the Richmond-Tweed region (7.2 per cent). Within these areas, the communities of Runaway Bay and Redland Bay suffered the most significant impact.
Top five regions by claim volume
1. Brisbane: 52% of total claims
2. Gold Coast: 34.9% of total claims
3. Richmond-Tweed: 7.2% of total claims
4. Wide Bay-Burnett: 2.4% of total claims
5. Sunshine Coast: 1.1% of total claims
Suncorp’s proactive disaster response began before ex-TC Alfred made landfall, with the DMC sending more than 107,000 SMS messages to customers with vital preparation advice – helping customers reduce potential damage.
The report highlights the extraordinary internal response, with more than 400 Suncorp employees from across the business volunteering to bolster the Customer Support team and Lodgement Response team at the height of the crisis.
Call volumes and claims spiked significantly two days after the cyclone made landfall, with more than 2,080 additional claims lodged on 10 March compared to the previous day, illustrating the strain such events place on support systems.
“In the past five years, Suncorp has managed more than 700,000 natural disaster claims, worth more than $9 billion,” Mr Johnston said.
Suncorp CEO Steve Johnston
We are committed to continuing to improve by investing in our processes to better identify customers experiencing a vulnerability and deliver timely support when it’s needed most.
“Throughout the summer disaster season this uplift has helped our team in responding to multiple weather events, including the devasting flooding in the North Queensland towns of Ingham and Cardwell in early February, and the hailstorm that struck Central NSW later that same month."
