The Australian Reinsurance Pool Corporation (ARPC), is an Australian government-owned reinsurance company that is associated with the Australian Department of the Treasury. ARPC is responsible for providing catastrophic reinsurance risk for specific risks – terrorism and cyclone – via reinsurance pools.^[1]

ARPC has a Board to oversee its activities, but is ultimately accountable to the Australian government.  The minister with day-to-day responsibility for ARPC is the Assistant Treasurer, the Hon. Stephen Jones MP.^[2]

Following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States , the Australian Parliament passed legislation to provide terrorism insurance cover for commercial properties.

The Terrorism Insurance Act 2003 was amended to the Terrorism and Cyclone Insurance Act 2003 (TCI Act) in March 2022.^[3] A second reinsurance pool to cover cyclone and flood related damage was introduced in July 2022 with backing from a $10 billion Government guarantee.^[4]

The terrorism reinsurance pool was established under the Terrorism Insurance Act 2003 (TI Act) and has a total funding capacity of approximately $14 billion.^[5] ARPC protects more than 760,000 eligible insured property assets around Australia valued at more than $3.9 trillion.^[6]

The cyclone reinsurance pool commenced operating on 1 July 2022 and applies Australia-wide to eligible home, strata and small business insurance policies.^[7]  The intent behind the pool is to remove the cost of capital from the calculations an insurer makes to determine the premium paid by a consumer, with the cost savings by the insurer then passed on to the customer. This means the cyclone pool focuses on insurance affordability and availability in areas with medium to high cyclone risk.^[8] By removing the cost of capital, the cyclone pool is also intended to help encourage those insurers not currently writing in business in cyclone-prone regions to do so.

To help the wider community understand the role and purpose of the reinsurance pools, ARPC engages with community groups, the insurance and reinsurance industries, and other government agencies. ARPC does this by developing and sharing data and insights on terrorism, cyclone, and insurance climate risk to support risk mitigation^[9], and also engages in dialogue with various community stakeholders in high-risk locations.