A home may look perfectly safe until a flood reaches its front door, a bushfire approaches or a cyclone tears through the neighbourhood. For millions of Australians, these risks are becoming harder to ignore, yet many homeowners still do not know how vulnerable their properties are or what they can do to protect them. Insurance can help cover the financial damage after a disaster, but it cannot prevent the damage from happening. Suncorp Insurance wanted to change that relationship by helping people prepare before extreme weather strikes. Its answer was Haven, a digital experience that lets homes speak directly to their owners about the risks they face.
Background
Australia faces recurring threats from bushfires, floods, storms and cyclones, with the damage extending far beyond the immediate loss of property. Suncorp’s research highlighted a major gap between the growing risk and how people respond to it. According to the campaign’s case study, 35% of Australians did not believe climate-related disasters would affect their homes, while nine out of ten insurance claims involved damage that could potentially have been prevented. The problem was not simply a lack of information. General warnings about extreme weather often felt distant, making it easy for homeowners to assume that the worst would happen somewhere else.
For an insurance company, this also raised a bigger question about its role. Traditionally, insurers become most visible after a disaster, when customers need to make claims and rebuild their homes. Suncorp wanted to move beyond that point and help people reduce the damage before it occurred. The company had already spent several years investing in home resilience through projects such as One House to Save Many and Resilience Road. However, these initiatives demonstrated what stronger homes could look like; the next challenge was helping individual homeowners understand what their own properties needed.
Insight
People are more likely to pay attention when a problem feels personal. Telling someone that their country faces increasing flood or bushfire risks does not necessarily make them inspect their roof, clear their gutters or strengthen their property. Suncorp found a more direct way to communicate the danger: instead of asking homeowners to listen to another expert, what if they could hear the warning from the place they cared about most? A home has its own age, structure, location and vulnerabilities, so its advice could be far more relevant than a general disaster-preparedness message.
Idea
Suncorp created Haven, a digital platform that gives Australian homes a voice and tells their owners how to prepare for extreme weather. Homeowners simply enter their property address to receive a personalised experience explaining the risks their home faces and the steps they can take to make it stronger. The central message is simple: your home has something important to tell you.
Execution
Haven brings together 12 data sources to create a personalised experience for each property. The platform combines Suncorp’s natural hazard risk data with information on location, property characteristics, weather and climate research. It also draws on data from partners such as Google, CoreLogic, WillyWeather and Geoscape to build a more detailed picture of each home. After entering an address, users receive a film in which their home speaks about its estimated risk levels for bushfires, floods, cyclones and storms. The voice is generated using AI, with different voices selected according to the property’s age, making the experience feel more connected to the character of the house.
The information does more than identify potential danger. Haven explains what homeowners can do to improve their property’s resilience and provides a downloadable report with tailored recommendations. A home at high risk of bushfire, for example, receives relevant guidance on reducing its vulnerability, while another property may receive advice related to flooding or storm damage. The platform was made available on desktop and mobile, allowing homeowners across Australia to check their risks without needing to arrange an inspection first. Television, outdoor advertising, social media, public relations and digital media helped introduce the service to a wider audience.
Haven also sits within Suncorp’s longer resilience programme. The earlier One House project, developed with CSIRO, James Cook University and Room11 Architects, tested how a home could withstand multiple natural hazards through its design and materials. Resilience Road brought those ideas into an existing neighbourhood in Rockhampton, where real homes received practical improvements such as cyclone mesh screens and ember guards. Suncorp’s community work with Queensland’s State Emergency Service and its advocacy for stronger building standards further connected individual home preparation with wider disaster resilience.
Results
Haven attracted more than 280,000 visitors in its first year, with users spending an average of two minutes and 55 seconds on the platform. According to the campaign’s reported Ipsos brand tracking, 95% of users found the experience informative and engaging, while 74% said they were definitely or probably going to make their homes more resilient. The launch also generated more than two million in earned media reach across national news outlets, with 139 articles covering the initiative.
The wider resilience strategy delivered business results alongside its public impact. The campaign case study reports a 75% year-on-year increase in home policy growth, while Suncorp’s longer-term programme contributed to a rise in customer lifetime value and improvements in its home insurance position. Haven also received a Bronze Pencil at The One Show 2026 in the Data for Good category.
By turning property data into a conversation between homeowners and their houses, Suncorp made extreme weather risks easier to understand and act on. Haven gave people something more useful than another warning: a clearer picture of what could happen to their homes and what they could do about it. For an insurer, helping customers protect their homes before disaster strikes can be just as important as helping them recover afterwards.
Watch the full campaign here.
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