It says something of the extent of disasters that have recently beset Australia that it has run short of one commodity never typically in short supply - insurance loss assessors.
One of the country's biggest general insurers, Suncorp, has brought in six assessors from the US, with another 10 expected to arrive this week to assess the cost of damage wrought by Cyclone Yasi, which ravaged coastal and inland north Queensland last week.
Yasi has capped a summer of flood, fire and storms that have unfolded mercilessly across the continent; just as the floods of southern Queensland were subsiding, heavy rains and inundation hit the southern state of Victoria; and just as this threat diminished, Yasi hit the north Queensland coast. A little after Yasi's passing, parts of Perth, in the country's west, suffered severe wildfires.
The so-called Lucky Country has one of the strongest economies in the developed world, and one of its lowest jobless rates. It has been arguably the biggest beneficiary of the global commodities boom of the past decade, shifting all manner of minerals and agriculture to its most voracious customer, China.
Not to diminish the strife that such disasters have caused, Australia's accumulated wealth can pay for the damage, vast as it has been. The country has no natural disaster fund to dip into, but is now looking at either massaging its federal budget or setting up a nationwide tax levy to pay the summer's diverse calamity bill.
Julia Gillard, the prime minister, has announced a US$1.8 billion (Dh6.61bn) levy, budget cuts and deferrals worth $3.8bn to raise the $5.6bn the federal government owes to repair infrastructure damaged by the floods in Queensland and Victoria.
The levy is contentious, but will probably pass through parliament. It applies only to those with incomes above $50,000 and will last for 12 months. The full cost of Cyclone Yasi will not be known for some time, but it is expected to dwarf the $1.5bn damages bill for Cyclone Larry in 2006.
Larry devastated a sharply defined area but Yasi has been far more widespread, leaving damaged roads, infrastructure, agriculture, housing - and the tourism industry - in its wake. The cost incurred to agriculture, mining and local government is expected to be at least $2bn, according to experts.
All the same, the Queensland government has vowed that flood and cyclone-hit local councils will get advance payments to fund infrastructure repairs. Under natural disaster relief arrangements, 75 per cent of the money needed to fix infrastructure will come from the federal government, with the rest funded by the state.
Relief is coming from some varied quarters. Woolworths, one of the country's biggest supermarket chains, has already paid banana growers $4 million in retrospective payments to help compensate them for crop damage caused by the cyclone. The extent of damage to the sugar crop, another big industry in the cyclone-ravaged areas, is expected to be severe.
As for the losses from the Queensland floods, total estimated insurance claims are now at $1.51bn, according to the Insurance Council of Australia. Its members had received 38,460 claims up to January 30, the vast majority coming from urban Brisbane and regional Queensland.
The cyclone, at least, does not appear to have done significant damage to mining companies and their transport facilities. Xstrata, the diversified miner listed in London, says it has already re-started production at its Mount Isa and Cloncurry mining operations. But it is still assessing whether the cyclone caused any damage to its Townsville copper refinery and port operations.