Almost 10,000 home insurance claims were made to the NRMA for weather damage in the ACT, NSW and Queensland in recent months, the highest spring number on record.
ACT storm claims were 50 per cent higher than an average spring, with wild weather disproportionately affecting the inner city and Canberra's south, according to the claims data.
The Canberra CBD, Calwell, Kambah and Narrabundah were the hardest hit suburbs in the ACT.
More than 50 per cent of the home insurance claims made in the ACT in spring were caused by wild weather - the highest proportion since 2017.
While the ACT didn't see one singular major storm event which saw claims spike in Queensland and NSW, record November rainfall resulted in a higher proportion of homes damaged by water.
With the Bureau of Meteorology last month declaring a La Nina, the climate driver typically associated with wet conditions, rain and storm damage was expected to continue throughout summer.
More than 34 millimeters of rain was recorded at the Canberra Airport on Friday, with more wet weather forecast from Wednesday this week.
With storms, flash flooding is quite possible, so there is an elevated risk.
Peter Chan
NRMA weather services manager Peter Chan said a lack of preparedness reported by ACT residents should be a red flag.
A survey of 500 ACT residents found almost half were not ready to respond if severe weather hit their suburb.
ACT residents gave themselves a self-assessed preparedness score of 55/100, while NSW residents scored themselves 62 for preparedness and Queensland residents ranked themselves 66/100.
Mr Chan said renters were often unaware their contents wasn't usually covered by their landlords insurance and now wasn't the time to be underinsured.
"We are right in the face of La Nina and the projection for the coming months during summer is that we'll be expecting wetter than normal conditions for the whole season and that means there's extra risk of rain and storms," he said.
"With storms, flash flooding is quite possible so there is an elevated risk."
Mr Chan said water seeping through cracks and windows was a common cause of damage to homes in the ACT.
He said cleaning gutters, trimming branches, securing loose items and knowing what to do in an emergency was an important way to mitigate the damage.
"Those are all really good things to do right now as we expect higher than average storm activities coming in the weeks and months ahead," Mr Chan said.
