Economic Impact
The Bushfires Royal Commission gave a "conservative" estimate of the total cost of the Black Saturday bushfires of A$4.4 billion. This figure included a value of $645 million placed on the 173 lives lost using an accepted method the government uses to value lives, however did not include any assessment of the cost of the injuries received.
The largest contributor to the total cost was insurance claims, which the Insurance Council of Australia reported as $1.2 billion as of August 2010. This figure was composed of 84 per cent for property or contents, and 16 per cent for vehicles. However the report also estimated that up to 13 per cent of residential properties destroyed may have had no insurance, with many more under-insured, thus suggesting that the actual cost of asset damage in the bushfires was considerably higher than that recorded. The report from the commission said that: "... the level of insurance claims is likely to underestimate the true extent of property losses, but it is unable to calculate the extent of this underestimation".
Also omitted from the $4.4 billion figure were the agricultural losses sustained in the fires, and the ongoing impacts on agriculture in following seasons. The Victorian Department of Primary Industries estimated losses shortly after the fires as 11,800 head of livestock, 62,000 hectares (150,000 acres) of grazing pasture, and 32,000 tonnes (31,000 long tons; 35,000 short tons) of hay and silage.
As of February 2011, two years after the fires, the Victorian Bushfire Reconstruction and Recovery Authority stated that based on figures from the end of 2010, permits had been issued for the rebuilding of only 731 of the 1,795, or 41 per cent of the principal places of residence destroyed in the fires.
Read more about this topic: Black Saturday Bushfires, Responses
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