The e-bike propped against a fire door, plugged into a hallway power point overnight, is no longer an awkward strata complaint. It is fast becoming the single most consequential lithium-ion exposure brokers could face this year and the one traditional underwriting controls can be least equipped to handle.
In Australia, Fire and Rescue NSW (FRNSW) recorded 332 lithium-ion battery-related incidents in 2025 - close to one a day. Across the Tasman, the trajectory is just as steep: data collated by Fire and Emergency New Zealand (FENZ) shows fires caused by lithium-ion batteries have more than doubled since 2020, growing from 51 in 2020 to 120 in 2024. Fresh insurer data from March 2026 sharpens the picture further - AMI, part of IAG New Zealand, reported that over a third of battery-related insurance claims occurred during charging, with an average cost of around NZ$33,000.
The pattern is very similar in both markets: more devices, denser living and a charging culture that was never designed with thermal runaway in mind.
As underwriters become more aware of the problem, some say the increasing frequency of these fires is only part of the problem. Dominique Vagi (pictured), chief underwriting officer for Hutch Underwriting said disproportionate to the cause, a small damaged cell on charge can produce a six-figure loss. Batteries reach roughly 900°C within seconds, release toxic gases and carry a well-documented re-ignition risk that complicates both firefighting and restoration. Even a quickly extinguished blaze can leave smoke and contamination damage across multiple units in a single complex.
What has shifted the conversation for underwriters is where these fires are starting. Common-property charging - hallways, stairwells, basement bike rooms - turns a contained unit fire into a building-wide evacuation problem.
For example, in Sydney's inner south at about 1am one morning, FRNSW crews quickly extinguished an e-bike fire before it could take hold and harm the occupants of a small apartment complex in Waterloo after the battery of an e-bike stored on the ground floor stairwell overheated while being charged and went into 'thermal runaway', bursting into flames. In late 2024, a fire started by an e-scooter on the 10th floor of an apartment block in Auckland’s CBD forced the evacuation of more than 200 residents into the street in their pyjamas. In Wellington, a body corporate advisory group went public after an e-scooter being charged in the apartment building of a member body corporate burst into flames, prompting a direct warning to committees about charging practices in common areas.
So the question for insurers and brokers concerning lithium-ion batteries in strata is no longer only contents-and-building losses but also physical safety and egress exposures.
"The biggest issue with these charging in hallways, which seems to be quite common in strata, is actually the risk to egress: a fire starts and then people can't get out of the apartment complex,” said Vagi.
In Queensland the human cost has already arrived with the Strata Community Association (SCA) Queensland warning of at least six lives lost in 2025 alone due to fires caused by lithium-ion batteries, compared with none recorded the previous year.
The challenge for brokers is that the usual riks levers don't work here. A lot owner cannot verify what a tenant plugs in overnight and a building manager cannot police every hallway. Vagi is candid that the market is still in a data-gathering phase and that asking questions about battery storage rarely produces a reliable picture of the actual exposure. Cost is not on the industry's side either: IAG has publicly estimated that while a traditional house fire averages around $87,000, a battery-led fire averages closer to $250,000 - roughly triple. Without a behavioural shift, that gap flows straight into premium.
For underwriters like Vagi the solution lies outside the policy wording: "That's something that we already see dealt with in the storing of flammable liquids in contracts and in bylaws within strata and it's something that the industry in general – not just the insurance industry – could consider driving towards,” she said.
For brokers, that can mean providing risk advice around the bylaws mandating where e-bikes and e-scooters can be charged, supervision rules, overnight-charging prohibitions, and - critically - aggregation limits on basement or ground-floor charging bays where a single thermal event can propagate across a dozen devices.
There are signs the market is moving that way. JS Mueller & Co Strata Lawyers reported that a number of strata buildings are introducing by-laws to ban or regulate e-bikes and e-scooters. They note, however, that outright bans are likely unenforceable because under NSW legal rules, by-laws cannot be "harsh, unconscionable or oppressive.”
For brokers, the takeaway could be that regulation will eventually catch up, but insureds will live with the exposure in the meantime. So the client conversation worth having now is not about limits or deductibles - it is about bylaws, charging locations, aggregation caps and tenant communication.
