The bill for the NSW storms is heading for an unwanted record, the most costly natural disaster ever.
It is already around half a billion dollars on early estimates.
Insurance costs for homeowners and business, lost coal production and exports, and the cost of repairing railways, road, water and sewerage infrastructure across the Hunter Valley and Central Coast, are the major components of that early estimate.
The Insurance Council of Australia has tentatively estimated the insurance bill at $220 to $250 million, but it should be kept in mind that the first estimate in these matters is always the lowest.
The council says that 20,500 claims have so far been received in NSW by IAG and Suncorp, the two biggest insurers.
They are worth an estimated $250 million. More claims will be received as people in and around the Hunter Valley and the Central Coast return to their homes.
Another 1500 claims had been lodged with other insurers.
The impact on the coal industry could be as great as the first estimate for insurers.
Early forecasts say 2 million tonnes of coal exports will be lost; that's worth more than $110 million at current prices.
But with road, rail and mines flooded or washed away or covered in silt, the lost output and exports will escalate.
Some mines are still waterlogged: the Bengalla mine in the Upper Hunter (Wesfarmers 40%) and production probably won't resume until later this week.
Exports are already constrained by a shortage of rail and loading capacity: the storms will not improve that and will in fact worsen the situation for the next week or more.
More coal needs to be delivered into Newcastle to rebuild stockpiles. Four ships may be loaded this week, not nearly enough. The queue outside the port of Newcastle will rise from 20 to 24 days. There are around 56 ships waiting.
That is a cost of $1 million a day.
BHP Billiton declared force majeur from its Mt Arthur steaming coal mine in the Upper Hunter Valley. It produces 10 million tonnes of coal a year.
Mt Arthur open-cut is located about five kilometres from the town of Muswellbrook.
Rio Tinto lost production from the mine4s owned by its subsidiary, Coal and Allied, which ships 26 million tonnes of coal a year from the Hunter. All of its mines are struggling back into production, but the problem will be shipping the coal to Newcastle to be exported.
Then there's the cost the NSW Government will have to cover, such as roads, rail, bridges (the old Pacific Highway will be closed for months after the fatal cave in on Friday night).
That will increase traffic congestion costs on the Central Coast into Sydney. Sewerage and water systems will have to be cleaned out and power is still being restored.
A bright spot is that the severe water shortage on the Central Coast and parts of the Hunter Valley has been eased, with some of the state's major power stations having their cooling dams replenished and some of the big storage dams also filling.
Rail services north to Newcastle and north to Brisbane are disrupted and buses are running both ways, meaning higher costs for the State Rail.
The cost of refloating the bulk carrier stranded off Newcastle won't be borne by Government but by the owners: that will cost millions of dollars, with two heavy tugs and specialist salvage crews to be paid for.
Major insurer, IAG says it has received more than 6,000 claims following the storms and expects that further lodgments will be received.
But the company, the country's biggest general insurer, says it's too early to estimate the ultimate cost.
IAG operates NRMA Insurance and CGU Insurance and it told the ASX yesterday that it would bear the full cost of claims under $100 million, and would be fully covered for any costs of more than $200 million.
IAG said partial covers were in place for losses between $100 million and $150 million.
"In particular, IAG will only bear 37.25 per cent of any losses between $100 million and $150 million."
There were no comments from other major insurers, such as Suncorp, which owns the GIO and AAMI brands in NSW, as well as the APIA and Vero brands.
And Wesfarmers shares rose on the back of upgrades from broking analysts because of rising coking coal prices, not because of the impact on its Bengalla mine, nor its Federation and Lumley insurance businesses, from the floods.
IAG shares closed down 7c at $5.90 while Suncorp lost 21c to end at $20.91.
