A collective sigh of relief could be heard across Sydney late yesterday afternoon as an unfamiliar object appeared in the sky.

For babies born 16-days-ago, it was the first time they’d seen the mass of light and heat radiating in the sky. ‘We call it the sun’, parents whispered weepily.

The stats are in, and they declare that NSW has recorded its wettest start to a year on record by far with 872.4 millimetres of rain falling since January 1. The average rainfall from January to March is 354mm. And while Sydney copped its fair share of it, the good people of the Northern Rivers region of NSW and parts of QLD were hit hardest, losing homes, farms, workplaces, and sadly in some cases, even their lives.

The scenes coming out of flood effected areas like Lismore are apocalyptic—homes swallowed completely, their contents now a muddy scrap pile on the side of the road. The Insurance Council of Australia said yesterday it had received 107,844 claims from the recent floods in Queensland and NSW.

This number is expected to climb in the coming weeks as people continue to return to what is left of their homes. Of the almost 108,000 claims, about 80% were property claims, with the remainder relating to motor vehicles. The cost stands at an estimated $1.6 billion so far, with analysts expecting that number to exceed $3 billion.

Then there are those who couldn’t afford home insurance in the first place. The cost of insurance against disasters has risen dramatically in recent years, with the average building and contents insurance now standing at $144 a month across Australia.

In flood prone areas like Lismore, that number jumps significantly, with some reporting quotes anywhere between $10K – $25K a year. For many, that’s simply unaffordable. One local antique shop owner said that no company would even offer him cover except one firm asking $70K a year. He lost everything.

In the aftermath of frequent natural disasters, many insurance companies now only offer policies that include flood cover, which has seen home insurance premiums increase by an estimated 30%. After this latest mass flooding event, there are predictions of a further 10% rise in the next financial year as insurers pass on the mounting cost of catastrophes.

The prediction of premium hikes comes as insurance giant IAG raised its allowance for catastrophes by $550 million to $1.1 billion in response to the floods. Just a month before, the government announced it had finishing designing a $10bn reinsurance pool to halt the exit of insurers from northern Australia as more extreme weather events are predicted.

But experts say that unless more is done to identify and reduce the risk, invest in mitigation, and take action to improve land planning and building codes and other resilience measures, premiums will continue to climb.

Without these measures, disaster-prone areas of Australia frequently hit by extreme weather events like floods and fires could soon become uninsurable.