Planning ministers have bowed to pressure from the insurance industry and commissioned a review into the building code. Allen Consulting Group has been recruited to recommend changes that will result in buildings needing to be constructed to protect property as well as protecting life. The current standards do not include any element of property protection and only require buildings to stand long enough for its occupants to evacuate, the Insurance Council of Australia (ICA) said.

Federal, state and territory planning ministers discussed the need to improve the standards at a meeting in Melbourne yesterday. 

Australian building codes are “significantly behind” the rest of the world in this respect, allowing development at “the lowest possible standard for the preservation of life and the safety of adjacent buildings”, the ICA said, in a submission to the intergovernmental review of building standards.

The building code is “heavily influenced” by property development stakeholders, the ICA claimed. “The move to a situation where the BCA includes elements of property protection, defending the considerable investment Australians make in ‘bricks and mortar’, will take considerable sustained effort from stakeholders such as the general insurance industry.”

Without changes, the standards will continue to produce “brittle buildings” that do not withstand the effects of strong weather, such as the flooding experienced in Queensland recently. 

“Without a change… [it] will become progressively more difficult for Australians to insure an environment where the everyday risks of extreme hail, wind, fire and flood have increased,” the submission said.

The councils warned of a worrying trend for insurers to limit their protection of buildings in high-risk regions, such as north Queensland.