Some home and contents policies we review exclude all cover for animal damage. While this may seem strict, at least you know where you stand. We take a closer look at the fine print of the 86 home policies that provide at least some cover for animal damage to figure out what they will and won’t cover.

Does home insurance cover animal damage?

Most home insurance policies typically cover sudden and accidental damage caused by animals. But not if the damage is caused by your own pets or common pests. So they generally won’t cover items ruined by Spot or Mittens, but what they actually will cover varies from policy to policy and is often full of exclusions.

What animal damage does home insurance cover?

Sudden damage

For damage to be covered by home insurance, it needs to be sudden and immediate – they won’t cover damage that happens gradually over time. For example, if a possum crashes through your roof overnight or a kangaroo breaks a fence, the repairs are typically covered because the event is unexpected and immediate.

However, insurers exclude gradual or preventable damage, such as long-term infestations of termites, or repeated damage from animals that occurs over weeks or months. The key distinction is whether the damage was a one-off incident caused by an “event” versus something that developed slowly and could have been prevented with maintenance.

Trapped animals

Almost one-fifth of policies with animal damage cover in our comparison specify that they will cover damage caused by an animal that has become accidentally trapped inside the house, including birds. QBE though, will only pay for damage to living areas, and will not cover damage to an enclosed crawl space, the outside of buildings, your roof cavity or contents in the open air. 

Insurers that offer cover for accidentally trapped animals including birds:

• AAMI
• Apia
• GIO
• QBE
• RAC
• RACT
• Suncorp
• Sure
• Youi

What animal damage does home insurance not cover?

Pets

Insurers usually make a distinction between animals you own, or allow to be there, and those you don’t. Some insurers refer to animals “kept at the premises” or animals you permit to be there, but they essentially mean the same thing – pets owned by you or your guests. And generally, if the animal is allowed there, damage they cause isn’t covered.

So that means that damage that your own pet causes is not covered. But also, if your friend brings their dog over during your coffee catch up, any damage it causes won’t be covered either.

A few policies will cover some damage caused by pets under the Accidental Damage optional extra. But this comes at an extra cost, and with its own set of exclusions.

Insects and vermin

Insects and vermin are specifically mentioned in some kind of exclusion in 95% of the policies we compare that offer some level of animal damage cover. 

Two thirds of these policies exclude all damage caused by insects and vermin. Other policies exclude all damage they cause except for fire and liquid escape, while others exclude all insect-related damage but still cover fire damage caused by vermin.

It pays to read the fine print of your policy carefully; there are a few policies that state they will cover damage caused by these creatures, but not if it’s caused by chewing, clawing or eating. So actually they won’t cover the most likely damage.

The definitions of insects and vermin vary too. In some cases it means just insects and rats and mice, while other definitions include native wildlife such as possums, as well as bats, termites, lice, and other species. We’ve seen cases where possums are explicitly classified as vermin under some policies, while in others they’re explicitly excluded from the definition of vermin.

You’ll usually be able to find out exactly what is meant by these terms in the glossary or definitions section of your PDS – if you’re reading it online, use Ctrl+F to search the document. Don’t rely on AI, because it often gets the answer wrong (we’ve tried).

You also can’t count on your policy to cover structural damage from termite infestations. The “action of termites” is specifically excluded by over half of the policies we analyse, and the remaining policies exclude insect damage or damage from insects eating, or only cover such damage if it results in a fire.

Birds

There is a lot of variation in the cover offered for damage caused by birds. Some policies refer specifically to birds, but if yours doesn’t, you can assume they are included as “animals”.

Overall, 24 policies we review that provide cover for animal damage exclude any damage caused by a bird. A further 41 list specific exclusions for actions like chewing, scratching, or soiling; which rules out most of the ways in which a bird might cause damage. So even if you’re covered for animal damage, most policies are unlikely to cover any bird damage. 

Some policies will cover damage by birds if they’re accidentally trapped inside and some cover bird damage to door and window glass or birds colliding with the property only. RAA only covers damage from birds if it results in a fire. 

The post Does home insurance cover animal damage? appeared first on ĚÇĐÄVlog.

1. Home insurance covers your pet’s accommodation if you can’t stay in your home

Overall, 95% of the home insurance policies we compared will pay to house your pets if your home is too damaged from an insured event to live in. Only AHM, Aldi, Bupa’s lower-tier policies, Huddle, Honey, RAA and RACQ restrict emergency accommodation to just the humans in your family.

A few insurers – Australian Seniors, Bupa, CBA, Everyday, Huddle and Real – specify that the offer of temporary accommodation is extended only to dogs and cats, while the rest use the term “pets”, with most mentioning that they’ll pay for commercial boarding facilities if your family needs temporary accommodation.

2. Home insurance will pay if your dog bites someone

If your dog injures someone, your home insurance could cover their medical bills – even if it happens when you’re away from home. Home insurance policies include cover for legal liability, so if you or a family member is deemed responsible for an accidental injury, as is usually the case when you’re responsible for a dog and they hurt someone, your home insurance could pay for things like legal fees, medical bills or compensation.

Some insurers limit this to just dogs, while others extend cover to dogs, cats and horses. Injuries or damage away from your property is covered by contents insurance, while injuries or damage on your property is covered by building insurance, and combined policies cover both.

3. Some home insurers cover vet bills

The following insurers will contribute to vet bills if your pet is injured in a road accident:

• Bank Australia
• Bank of Melbourne
• BankSA
• COTA
• Great Southern Bank
• Guild
• Guild
• HCF
• Hume Bank
• Kogan
• NAB
• National Seniors
• Over Fifty
• St.George
• TIO
• Westpac

And you can add cover for vet bills as an optional extra to policies from GIO, RAA, RACQ and Suncorp.

4. Home insurance will cover damage by uninvited pets

Other people’s pets that have not been invited onto your property are generally covered, so if they cause sudden accidental damage, you can make a claim for the cost of repairs – provided it’s not excluded by one of the other clauses in your policy.

5. Almost no home insurance policies will cover pet damage to your home

While you’re generally covered if an uninvited animal shows up at your house, if it’s your own pet doing the damage the news isn’t so good. Of the 98 policies we analyse, 97 policies specifically exclude all damage caused by pets in their standard version (the exception is Youi – it provides cover for fire caused by pets, but that’s it). This exclusion includes your guests’ pets, and pets you’re minding too. Basically, damage they cause won’t be covered if you’ve allowed the animal to be on your premises. 

You can pay for the accidental damage optional extra to get some cover for pet damage, but this comes at an extra cost, and with its own set of exclusions.

The post Does your home insurance cover pets? You might be surprised appeared first on ĚÇĐÄVlog.

If you’re planning an extended trip away from home, perhaps that long-awaited overseas adventure or a sabbatical to a holiday house, then checking your home insurance is something to add to your to-do list before you go. 

We take a look at what insurers mean by ‘extended leave’, what happens if you have a house-sitter or Airbnb guest, and what the risks are if you don’t tell your insurer you’re away.

Should I tell my insurer I’m going on an extended holiday? 

“Most definitely yes,” says ĚÇĐÄVlog home insurance expert Daniel Graham.

“Almost all insurance product disclosure statements (PDS) will include the requirement that you inform them if your home will be unoccupied, typically, for 60 or more days,” says Daniel.

“Insurers handle unoccupied homes in one of three ways: most will impose an additional excess on events that occur while your home isn’t occupied. Some will make you pay an extra premium instead, or they might only cover you for a limited set of weather events, instead of the full range of insured events covered by the policy.”

Most of the policies in our home and contents insurance comparison require you to tell your insurer if you’re away for 60 days or more, a few give you 90 days away without having to let them know, and some give you 100 days where you’re still covered by your regular policy.

“Your policy might have additional criteria that you need to meet, such as having someone check in on the property once a week, or having the lawns mown regularly,” says Daniel.

“Each insurer defines ‘unoccupied’ in their own way, so it’s important to read your policy documents to properly understand your cover.”

How long do insurers cover you to be away from home?

How does extended leave affect the conditions of your policy?

Companies that cover extended leave generally require customers to pay either a higher premium or a higher excess for that period. Depending on which company you’re with, you may also need to meet other requirements, such as having someone mow your lawn, collect your mail and regularly check on the house.

This won’t just apply to those heading overseas, so if you’re planning a long trip within Australia, you’re staying elsewhere while you renovate, receiving long-term medical care in a hospital or a rehab centre, or you’ve moved out while trying to sell or rent your property, make sure you check your insurance.

Can an insurer deny your claim during your extended leave?

According to Daniel, they can. But it also depends on your insurer. 

“If you haven’t informed your insurer and met your duty of disclosure responsibilities,” says Daniel, “they can either not cover you at all, or not cover you for certain events, such as theft or leaks, or they can charge you an additional excess on top of what you’re already paying.

“It comes down to a case-by-case basis.”

Why does it matter if there’s nobody at home?

An empty house isn’t just a bigger risk for insurance companies, but also for owners. Your home might be at increased risk of vandalism, theft, and damage from weather-related events such as storms, floods, cyclones, bushfires and blizzards.

A house that looks empty is tempting to thieves. According to data from the thieves look for signs that a house is unoccupied. These include:

• rubbish bins left out on the curb
• no lights turned on at night
• no cars in the driveway
• uncollected mail
• overgrown garden or lawn.

Aside from break-ins, another risk for an empty home is if something goes wrong. 

Damage from a leaking washing machine, burst pipe or severe weather might not be discovered for weeks or even months. This raises the risk of a small incident becoming something more serious while you’re away.

I rent – do I need to tell my landlord I’m going away?

As a renter, you’re not responsible for taking out insurance to protect the property. However, your lease may require you to inform your landlord if you’re going to be away from the property for an extended period of time. Either way, it’s a good idea to let your landlord know if you’re going on a long trip. 

If you have renter’s insurance, read through your PDS carefully and make sure you understand what effect your absence might have on your coverage. If in doubt, check with your insurer.

Is my home classed as ‘unoccupied’ if I have a house-sitter?

“Having a house-sitter will usually meet the criteria for occupancy,” Graham says. “It comes down to the way the insurer defines ‘occupied’ and often if someone is eating, sleeping and living in your home, then it’s occupied. If it’s only someone staying there one night every once in a while, this might not meet the requirements and your insurer might consider that an unoccupied home.”

Do Airbnb guests make my home ‘occupied’?  

It does, according to Graham, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll be covered.

“Once you add in tenants it becomes a business situation,” he says. “Home insurers don’t want to take on the added risk of covering someone’s home business, and are increasingly writing exclusions for short-term letting into their policies.” 

If you’re planning to have Airbnb guests stay in your home for some or all of your extended holiday, you must discuss it with your insurance company, advises Graham.

“Not only do you need cover for your building and contents, but if you’re renting out your home you need cover for legal liability,” says Graham. “The last thing you want is to have paying guests injure themselves and damage your property, then find out your insurer won’t cover you for either.”

In November 2023, the urged homeowners planning to rent out their properties to ensure they had the right insurance in place.

“Standard home and contents insurance can exclude coverage for short-term rentals,” they said. They advised homeowners planning to rent out their properties to:

• check their building and contents insurance policy details prior to advertising on short-stay holiday rental platforms. If the policy doesn’t cover short-term rental look for a specialty policy that protects both home and contents while paying guests are staying 
• be aware that a rental platform’s host protection insurance may not cover all the types of damage that might potentially occur 
• reduce the risk of theft by removing valuables during the short-term stay 
• check strata rules, tenancy agreements and local council laws because these may prohibit short-stay holiday rental.

Most people don’t know whether they are covered

One of the challenges around extended leave and insurance is that most people are simply unaware it’s an issue.

Reading their PDS in detail can help you understand the terms that apply in this situation, but as Daniel says, PDS documents aren’t typically an easy read.

“We know that people very frequently don’t read their policy documents,” he says.” They’re often very long documents, they’re confusing, they’re written in complex legal language and people just don’t have the time to get their head around all the details.

“This is something that would really come up on an ad hoc basis, so it’s not something you’re likely to do often.”

As with most forms of insurance, the devil is in the detail. It’s worth taking the time to read through your policy or talking to your insurer about it, and about what you need to do to make sure your home and valuables remain covered.

Holiday checklist

• Read your policy carefully well before you leave. If anything is confusing or unclear, call your insurance company to talk it through.
• Give your insurance company your holiday dates as far in advance as possible.
• If your insurance company has any requirements (such as having someone collect your mail or mow the lawn), make arrangements with a friend, neighbour or professional service for the time you’ll be away. 
• Consider installing a security alarm or security camera.
• Consider turning off your water at the mains.
• Take basic details of your insurance with you on your holiday, such as your membership number and the name of your plan.
• Make sure you have all agreements with your insurer in writing.

The post How to make sure your home is still insured while you’re on holiday appeared first on ĚÇĐÄVlog.

Opened up an email or letter from your home insurer recently to find an eye-watering increase to your annual premium? You’re not alone.

The rising cost of home insurance is increasing the financial pressure on Australian households. In fact, 80% of households are now worried about the cost of their home insurance. This is up from 75% in June 2024, and the highest level we’ve seen in our 10 years of tracking household budget concerns with our nationally representative Consumer Pulse surveys*.

Over the past year, quotes for new home and contents policies increased by 4.1%, or $153, on average. But which insurers have lumped their customers with the biggest price increases?

To assess how much prices have jumped in the last year, our experts compared thousands of quotes from 30 insurers collected in January 2025 to quotes collected for the same scenarios in January 2026. Then we calculated the average change for each brand.

ĚÇĐÄVlog insurance expert Daniel Graham says: “The inflation spike that hit the economy after the COVID disruptions affected home insurance prices particularly hard. In 2024, we saw quotes for new business increase by 16% on average. The good news is that widespread price hikes have slowed down. The bad news is those high premiums are here to stay.”

*ĚÇĐÄVlog Consumer Pulse June 2025 is an online survey of 1,008 Australian households that has been weighted to ensure it is representative of the Australian population based on the 2021 ABS Census data.

ĚÇĐÄVlog tip: With a huge variety of policies out there that can vary in price by thousands of dollars, it’s important to ensure you’re getting the best deal possible on the coverage that suits you best. Compare home and contents policies.

The insurers with the biggest price increases

The insurers with the largest average price increases between January 2025 and January 2026 were:

• Kogan: 15.5%
• AHM: 13%
• Honey: 12.2%
• Apia: 11.2%

Kogan changed underwriters during 2025, meaning the quotes obtained in January 2026 are for a product with different conditions, exclusions and limits.

“Kogan took a policy that regularly ranked at the top of our comparison and swapped it for one that scores just average on cover,” Daniel says. “You might have expected the price to come down too, considering they also increased prices by 38% in 2024.”

Average price increases don’t tell the whole story

Daniel says that while insurers may boast low average price increases, this often doesn’t tell the whole story, as insurers don’t raise all their prices uniformly. 

“Insurers have many levers at their disposal to change the way their algorithm calculates your premium,” he says. “Sometimes this means an insurer will increase prices for some addresses, while keeping them the same or even dropping them for others.

“In 2025 insurers took a more targeted approach to their price changes. In 2024 almost all of the quotes we tracked changed, mostly upwards. This year insurers were less frantic. Only a third of the quotes we tracked went up, and half didn’t change at all.”

Although Kogan had the greatest average premium increase, the price hikes were limited to less than a quarter of the tracked addresses, with variations between states and territories.

“In NT, SA, northern Queensland and Tasmania the increases were well above that brand’s overall average,” says Daniel. “But in NSW and ACT they slashed prices for some new customers: more than a third of their quotes were lower, and barely any went up. Other insurers were doing a similar balancing act, but not to the same degree.” 

Daniel says this is a good reason to not write off an insurer you might previously have dismissed as too expensive. It’s possible they’ve changed their underwriting approach in a way that means it’s now cheaper to insure your home with them.

“We tracked quotes at 5,330 addresses around Australia,” he says. “For 40% of those homes, the cheapest quote in our dataset was actually lower in January 2026 than in 2025. So while premiums are going up in general, it’s possible to find competitive prices if you’re willing to shop around.”

The insurers with more reasonable price hikes

Even though CPI inflation was 3.5% in 2025, for insurance and financial services alone that figure is 2.5%. 

Here are the insurers whose prices went up by less than financial services inflation, on average:

• Bank of Melbourne, BankSA, St.George, Westpac: 2%
• Bupa: 1.9%
• RAA: 1.9%
• RACT: 1.6%
• TIO: 1%
• Everyday Insurance (Woolworths): 0.6%
• Guild: 0.3%

The insurers that dropped prices

Surprisingly, some insurers actually reduced their prices in 2025. They’re an odd mix: a major national insurer, a couple of small independents, and a supermarket:

• QBE: 2.1%
• Aldi: 5.7%
• Sure: 7.2%
• RAC: 8.9%

Daniel says: “Aldi is an interesting one. Even though their policy is a carbon copy of Honey’s, they spent 2025 getting as far as they could from each other on price. Everything about the policy is the same except for the logo. But Aldi is now about 25% cheaper than Honey.”

The biggest price cutter of 2025 was RAC, who reduced premiums at half the addresses we tracked, with quotes going down by 8.9% on average.

“This is quite the turnaround for the West Australian insurer,” says Daniel, who notes that in 2024 RAC actually had the second greatest average increase in our analysis (32.3%). “It’s good they’re walking back some of those price hikes, but it’s important to consider the big picture. Is this the start of a downward trend, or just a blip?”

The factors affecting price

ĚÇĐÄVlog experts spend a lot of time analysing quotes and policies offered by various insurers, so we know there are many factors that influence the quote you get as a potential new customer.

These include where in Australia you are, the level of security you have, how much you’ve insured your property for and what excess amount you choose. 

It pays to shop around, because prices vary a lot from insurer to insurer. Instead of declining cover to high-risk properties they don’t want to insure, some insurers will offer ludicrously high quotes to see if you bite.

For nine addresses we looked at in January 2026, the most expensive quote was more than 20 times greater than the cheapest competitor’s. Read more about how to get the best value home insurance.

The post Kogan, AHM and Honey: The home insurers with the biggest annual price hikes appeared first on ĚÇĐÄVlog.

In our home and contents review we use a national price rating to assess value for money. But in this article, we analyse prices state-by-state to find the cheapest home insurance in each location. 

We then use this information combined with our expert analysis of what each policy covers to reveal the best value insurance policies across the country.

On this page:

• How much does home and contents insurance cost?
• Cheapest insurers by state
• How to choose the right home insurance policy
• Best value home and contents insurance by state

How much does home and contents insurance cost?

The cost of home insurance is continuing to rise at a rapid rate, adding more unwelcome financial pressure to households.

We crunched the numbers to see how much Australians are paying for home and contents insurance across the country.

Cheapest insurers by state

We recommend regularly reviewing your insurance policy to make sure you’re only covered for what you need, and that you’re getting the best price for your cover.

We found the cheapest insurance products in each state so you can check whether they’re right for you.

These policies don’t necessarily provide the best cover, however, so make sure you read the product disclosure statement (PDS) and learn more about the cover details of these policies in our home and contents comparison before making the switch. We used the same method to calculate Price scores we use in our comparison, but limited the quotes by state. We looked at over 56 products, with the number of quotes pre product ranging from up to 37 in ACT to over 1500 in Queensland.  

We reveal the best value policies further down, exclusively for ĚÇĐÄVlog members. If you’d like to make sure you’re getting the best value for your dollar, sign up or log in below.

How to choose the right home insurance policy

If you want real value for money in insurance, however, you also need to look at what’s covered by each policy. To do this yourself, you’ll need to go through the policy documents for each product and compare the points of coverage that are important to you. Or you could use our Cover score, which is calculated by our insurance experts and is available to ĚÇĐÄVlog members.

We look at how insurers cover over 500 different things, and allocate points for everything, from whether the policy includes an under-insurance safety net and flood cover, to how much they’ll pay for food spoilage during a blackout, or furniture damaged when moving house.

We then convert this to a percentage so you can easily compare the level of cover between one policy and another.

Best value home and contents insurance by state

We have used our Cover score with state-based prices to reveal the policies that offer the best bang for your buck in your state. Log in to unlock this members-only content, or join ĚÇĐÄVlog to get instant access to all of our expert, independent reviews.

Becoming a ĚÇĐÄVlog member also gives you access to a massive library of product and service reviews and comparisons based on our rigorous independent lab testing and expert knowledge so you can choose products and services with confidence.

The post The best and cheapest home and contents insurance in every state appeared first on ĚÇĐÄVlog.

Supermarkets are competing with each other for more than just your grocery spend.

While Coles and Woolworths have been offering insurance products for years, Aldi debuted its insurance offering last June, giving its customers the opportunity to pick up their home and contents insurance, landlord insurance and car insurance along with their weekly shop. 

But is it a good idea to buy your insurance from the same place you get your milk and bread? 

There are certainly lots of incentives that the big supermarkets dangle in front of you to get your business. Coles and Woolies offer a range of insurance policies linked to their respective loyalty programs, Everyday Rewards and Flybuys, which give you bonus points when you sign up and ongoing discounts on your shopping that can increase according to how many policies you hold.

Of course, in order to take advantage of these discounts, you hand over a significant amount of personal data to the supermarkets, something ĚÇĐÄVlog experts warn you should be wary of. 

Aldi doesn’t have a loyalty program and doesn’t offer conditional discounts – their insurance products were launched promising “everyday competitive prices for Australian shoppers”.

With many Australians struggling with the increasing cost of living, a discount on groceries is undoubtedly a huge incentive. But ĚÇĐÄVlog experts advise that while price is a key concern for many when shopping for a new insurance policy, you should also be considering the finer details of a policy and understand what you actually will, or won’t, be covered for.

Short-term savings on your groceries are great, but insufficient insurance coverage or tricky caps or exclusions could leave you substantially out of pocket if you ever need to make a claim.

How can supermarkets offer insurance products? 

The general insurance industry in Australia is worth almost $100 billion, so it’s unsurprising that the major supermarkets want to get a slice of that pie.

However, supermarkets are obviously not financial service providers, insurance companies or experts, so they essentially act as an insurance promoter, leveraging their brand and their existing customers to sell another company’s insurance which they then collect commission for.

Coles home insurance products are provided by Auto & General (which sells insurance under the more familiar Budget Direct brand) while Hollard issues home insurance for Woolworths’ Everyday Insurance brand. Aldi insurance is underwritten by RACQ Insurance through an agreement with Honey Insurance. 

How do the Coles, Woolworths and Aldi home insurance policies stack up?

ĚÇĐÄVlog experts have compared over 100 home insurance policies across the market to help you find the one that best suits your needs and budget.

Unlike other insurance comparison websites, we’re completely independent and don’t get paid by any of the insurers we’re comparing. That means we’re also willing to call out the policies that we don’t recommend because they don’t offer good value or have weird exclusions.

ĚÇĐÄVlog insurance expert, Daniel Graham has closely scrutinised each of the home insurance policies offered by Coles, Woolworths and Aldi.

“These are all fairly standard policies – what stands out about them is that none of them are unique,” he says.

“Aldi is the king of copycat snacks and when it comes to insurance products, all three supermarkets have simply repackaged someone else’s existing policy and slapped their logo on it.

“When you look at what the supermarkets are putting forward as their point of difference you get the sense they’re struggling to stand out in a market where unique selling points are mostly buried deep in the detail. 

“Remember, almost all home insurance policies cover you for the same dozen or so insured events, so it’s in sub-limits and exclusions that a product can shine – or not. For the most part, these policies do not.

“That’s why it’s important to look at the detailed Product Disclosure Statement of the policy you’re buying.”

Just like with groceries, shopping around for your insurance can land you some pretty significant insurance savings. And just like supermarkets, there isn’t as much variety out there as you might think.

If you think any of these policies gives you the cover you need, it’s worth getting quotes from other brands with similar or identical policies to see if you can get it cheaper (without the need to commit to shopping at one supermarket forevermore to gain your loyalty points or get your discount).

And of course, use ĚÇĐÄVlog’s home insurance comparison to see how the supermarket brands stack up against the rest.

Coles, Woolworths and Aldi home insurance policies compared

Aldi Household Insurance

• Cover score: 57%
• Price score: 75%
• Sum insured policy underwritten by RACQ

Aldi’s big hook is the 8% discount they offer to home insurance customers for putting web-connected monitoring devices in their homes, to detect things like leaks and doors left open.

This is not actually an Aldi special, but instead comes straight from Honey Insurance, which administers their policies. The discount, along with the insurance policy itself, is also available through other brands including Honey and BOQ.

While many aspects of the Aldi policy are standard, there are a few points of difference ĚÇĐÄVlog experts have noted: 

• the policy’s optional accidental damage cover doesn’t include the outside of the building or the whole list of general contents
• policy offers up to $1500 for stolen credit/ATM card fraud (per card)
• offers storm surge cover which is a rare inclusion but could be valuable for coastal properties 
• above average limits for food spoilage (up to $1000)
• no overseas cover for portable contents (except New Zealand)
• no cover for vet bills. Vet bills are not covered by any of the supermarket home insurance policies but are covered by other policies in our comparison. 
• this policy offers slightly better value than average in terms of price. It is by no means a bargain, but it outperforms both the Woolies policies.

Find more about the features of the Aldi policy and how it compares.

Coles Home Insurance

• Cover score: 61%
• Sum insured policy with optional 25% building safety net
• Underwritten by A&G

As we highlighted earlier, for both the Coles and Woolworths policies, the unique selling point isn’t actually in the insurance product: it’s in the fact that you get discounts on your shopping or additional points in exchange for handing over your personal data to their respective loyalty programs.

Remember there are many other policies that offer the same cover or better out there, so it’s still important to shop around to make sure you’re getting the best deal. 

The Coles policy is the only supermarket policy with an optional 25% building safety net if you find yourself underinsured if you have to repair or rebuild your home.

A few other notable points in the fine print: 

• optional accidental damage covers some commonly excluded events like scorch marks on benchtops and damage caused by pets
• no coverage for gardens and landscaping, which is an unusual exclusion
• good cover for the emergency storage of undamaged contents (if you can’t live in your home due to damage from an insured event)
• international cover for portable contents
• temporary accommodation cover includes $250 to cover emergency groceries
• very good “cover for contents in the open air” (ie if you leave your possessions outside and they get damaged or stolen), however there is a cap at $1000 for theft. Exclusions apply.
• no cover for vet bills. Vet bills are not covered by any of the supermarket home insurance policies but are covered by other policies in our comparison.  

Find out more about the features of the Coles Home Insurance policy and how it compares.

Everyday Home Insurance (Woolworths)

Standard

• Cover score: 48%
• Price score: 57%
• Sum insured policy underwritten by Hollard

Comprehensive

• Cover score: 55%
• Price score 49%
• Sum insured policy underwritten by Hollard

Woolworths offers two tiers of its home insurance product at different price points. As we have pricing data available for each of these policies, we’re able to compare how they stack up on both features and price, and it’s not great news.

Daniel says: “The Everyday Insurance Standard policy received a Price score of 57% – the higher the score, the cheaper the policy usually is compared to other products. There are many policies in our review that outperform both of these on both cost and level of cover.”

“And there are identical products offered by providers such as Real Insurance and Australian Seniors, so it’s worth shopping around to ensure you’re getting the best deal.”

A few details to note in these policies:

• no safety net for either if you find yourself underinsured
• accidental damage, such as to carpets, furniture, kitchen appliances, TVs etc, comes standard with the Comprehensive policy
• good cover in both policies for emergency storage of undamaged contents
• cover for contents when moving to a new home not covered by Standard policy
• no cover for vet bills in either policy. Vet bills are not covered by any of the supermarket home insurance policies but are covered by other policies in our comparison.  

Find out more about the features of the Everyday Insurance policies and how they compare.

Brands that offer similar home insurance products

If you think any of these supermarket policies give you the cover you need, it’s worth getting quotes from other brands with similar or identical policies to see if you can get it cheaper (and without having to join a supermarket loyalty program).

Everyday Insurance from Woolworths: Compare with Real Insurance, Australian Seniors.

Coles*: Compare with Budget Direct, Virgin Money, ING, Qantas.

Aldi: Compare with Honey, BOQ, Bank Australia.

* Coles has a $250 benefit for groceries built into their temporary accommodation benefit, which the other brands do not. In all other ways the cover is identical.

The post Should you buy home insurance from Coles, Woolies or Aldi? appeared first on ĚÇĐÄVlog.

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Just like with your health insurance and utility bills, there are some simple things you can do to cut the cost of your home insurance, says ĚÇĐÄVlog insurance expert Daniel Graham. 

Here’s where to start. 

• 1. Shop around
• 2. Consider increasing your excess to $1000–1500
• 3. Avoid the loyalty penalty
• 4. Look for discounts
• 5. Consider paying yearly, not monthly
•  6. Take out one of our recommended policies

1. Shop around

If you’ve been with the same insurer for more than 24 months, Daniel advises calling your insurer to ask them if you can get a better deal. Then, get quotes from at least three other insurers to compare and find the best value – some will match or beat competitors’ premiums. And new customers often get a discount to sweeten the deal.

A good place to start is the ĚÇĐÄVlog home insurance review. We’ve compared more than 50 different home insurance policies from across the market to help you find the right cover for your building and contents. 

We’ve looked at home and contents policies offered by all the major insurers, including NRMA, GIO, QBE, Budget Direct, Youi and more, to help you figure out which one is right for you, including giving them a price rating which indicates, on average, how expensive a policy is compared to others. And, unlike other insurance comparison websites, we’re completely independent and don’t get paid by any of the insurers we’re comparing.

When getting quotes, also consider the level of cover you need. If you’ve made any changes to your home or your circumstances have changed, it may be worth adjusting your coverage. You can find out more about how to figure out the sum you should insure your house for in our home and contents insurance buying guide.

How much does home insurance cost?

Shopping around can save you thousands of dollars. The difference in average premiums between the cheapest and most expensive policy ranges from $3519 in northern Queensland to $1526 in South Australia.

In all states, average premiums for the most expensive policy are around double the average premiums for the cheapest, so there are a lot of savings to be found.

2. Consider increasing your excess to $1000–1500

The excess is the amount you need to pay towards a claim before your insurer will cover the rest. A higher excess can result in lower premiums, as it may mean you make fewer claims overall. 

For example, if you have an excess of $500 on your policy, this is the amount you have to pay when making a claim. 

With a $500 excess, it makes sense for you to make a $1500 claim. But if you increase your excess to $1500, you would only make claims that are higher than that amount to make it worth your while. The insurer therefore charges you less, as you’re likely to make fewer lower-value claims.

“Generally speaking, your premium goes down around 10% for every $500 increase to your excess,” says Daniel.

“Having an excess of between $1000 and $1500 seems to be where you can get the best savings. We’ve found there are diminishing benefits to increasing your excess much above that.

“Some insurers offer very high excesses around the $5000 mark or higher, but those levels seem to be there for people who live in places at high risk of natural disaster, where home insurance is already very expensive and people need to bring down their premiums any way they can.”

3. Avoid the loyalty penalty

New customers often get cheaper premiums than renewing customers, as insurers offer discounts to attract new customers while keeping customers who have been with them for years on the same rate. 

“We call this the loyalty penalty,” says Daniel. 

“It simply means that if you haven’t switched insurers for a while, you’re likely missing out on savings. If you’re willing to put in the effort you could theoretically change your insurer every year or so to keep getting the first year discount.”

Simply check your renewal price against your current insurer’s online quote calculator. If the price is lower for a new customer, call and ask them to match the lower price.

4. Look for discounts

Many insurers offer discounts for things such as installing security systems, having a good claims history, or if you’re working from home a lot. 

Bundling your home insurance with the provider of your other insurance – your car insurance, for example – can also reward you with a discount. 

But, make sure you read the details of the policies carefully, warns Daniel. 

“You’ll need to make sure the policies will suit your needs – you don’t want to get discounted home and contents cover just to end up with a dud car insurance policy,” he says. 

5. Consider paying yearly, not monthly

You can also get a discount by paying your premiums annually instead of monthly. 

“Some insurers charge you more to pay by the month, which means you could be paying 10–25% extra each year. Some insurers charge a flat fee for paying monthly, although most simply tack on a percentage of your premium as the penalty,” says Daniel.

In any case, if you currently pay monthly but could afford to pay a whole year’s worth of insurance in advance, call your insurer to ask what the difference in cost would be.

If you can’t afford to pay upfront, look for an insurer that doesn’t charge fees for paying by the month.

 6. Take out one of our recommended policies

The policies our experts recommend have superior cover, and they’re often cheaper than average policies. When we compare home and contents insurance we look at what cover a policy provides and how much it costs on average in a state or territory.

The best policies are recommended by our experts and they are the ones you should start with when shopping around. Consider the level of cover you need, then check out our comparison and recommendations to find the best value policies that meet your requirements.

Note: For our January 2026 comparison, the average price of our nationally recommended policy in ACT was $59 higher than the market average. Because we take cover as well as price into account when making recommendations, we sometimes recommend policies that are not the absolute cheapest available.

Pru: ‘I saved $700 a year by switching insurers and paying annually’

While helping to write this piece on ‘How to save on home insurance’, I figured I should take a look at my own policy. We have other insurance policies with my state’s motoring club insurer and they offer a loyalty discount, so we considered sticking with them for our policy on our house. 

Including a loyalty discount, we were quoted an annual premium of $1831.36 or $157.40 per month based on our sum insured for building and contents (with an excess of $1000 for building and $750 for contents). 

When I looked into the details, I realised we would be paying slightly more ($55.90 over a year) by opting to pay monthly. It’s not much, but that’s still money I’d prefer to have in my pocket. So, I checked out the ĚÇĐÄVlog reviews to find out which insurers had the best ‘price rating’ for New South Wales and obtained quotes from them. 

Even by keeping the same excess, and opting to pay annually, the quotes I received from two other Big Four insurers were around $680 less per year (including discounts for signing up online). Seems like an easy way to make some savings to me! 

The post How to save money on your home insurance appeared first on ĚÇĐÄVlog.

Unfortunately, home and contents insurance is not one of those things you can simply strike from your household budget – it’s wise to ensure your assets are covered in the event of minor or major disasters. 

But it’s also wise to ensure you’re getting the best deal. 

And as you’re forking out hundreds or thousands of dollars each year for cover in the case of things like fire, flood or theft, it’s vital you have a good-value policy you can rely on, and not one that’s over-priced, lacks basic features or has sneaky exclusions. 

The home and contents insurance policies to avoid

ĚÇĐÄVlog experts have compared more than 100 home insurance policies across the market to help you find the one that best suits your needs and budget. We score each policy by balancing the cost with the features it offers, including cover limits and exclusions.

Unlike other insurance comparison websites, we’re completely independent and don’t get paid by any of the insurers we’re comparing. 

That means we’re also willing to call out the policies that we don’t recommend because they don’t offer good value or have weird exclusions. 

We don’t want you to end up with a dud policy, so here are the products that were amongst the lowest scoring in our review, and which ĚÇĐÄVlog experts say you should be wary of.

ĚÇĐÄVlog insurance expert Daniel Graham says: “In our latest comparison, we’ve found 12 different insurance products that are particularly bad, scoring 53% or less, which we recommend consumers avoid. Two are extremely expensive and don’t give you good value, while the other 10 are from the same underwriter, Hollard.” 

These include policies offered by Woolworths Everyday Insurance, Bupa, Huddle, AHM, Honey, GIO, Guild and Real Insurance. 

Daniel says that many Australians don’t realise that while insurance policies may be branded differently or sold by different providers, such as your favourite supermarket, your bank or health insurer, they are often essentially ‘white-label’ products backed by the same underwriter, so there are often policies with identical cover being sold at different prices.

“This means it’s really important to compare a policy before you buy,” says Daniel. “Check what you’re covered for and how the policy measures up, who is the underwriter, and can you get better value for money by switching to a different brand or provider.”

“We consider a huge breadth of features in our comparison and give each policy a score based on the features it offers and what it costs. At the bottom of the list we have some low-scoring barebones policies that charge more than they should for some of the lowest coverage levels in the market.”

Consider becoming a ĚÇĐÄVlog member to see the best performers.

The lowest-scoring policies: bad points 

Ten of the lowest-scoring policies in our latest comparison are underwritten by Hollard. They offer budget coverage without the budget price tag. These include: 

• AHM (Basic and Comprehensive) 
• Bupa (Basic and Comprehensive) 
• Everyday Insurance (Standard and Comprehensive) 
• Huddle (Basic and Comprehensive) 
• Real Insurance (Essential and Top) 

Despite the different names, the Comprehensive policies (called ‘Top’ by Real Insurance) are quite similar to the basic policies. They come with accidental damage cover and some higher sublimits, but there’s otherwise not much to differentiate the two cover levels.

The accidental damage cover actually gets an excellent score, but the gains there are offset by the higher price.

Some bad points ĚÇĐÄVlog experts note about all of these policies, include: 

• No underinsurance safety net, which is a feature that provides a buffer of extra coverage beyond your nominated ‘sum insured’ if the cost to rebuild or replace your property after a total loss is higher than expected. This usually adds a percentage (e.g. 10% to 30%) to your sum insured for a total loss. 
• No cover for animal damage. For example, if a wild bird flies into your home and gets trapped, causing damage to a window or contents while trying to escape. Most insurers treat this as a distinct insured event. 
• ‘New for old’ cover excludes clothing, computers more than four years old, household linen, items out of use/stored away and shoes (they do however say they will cover the reasonable market value for these items based on age and condition).

There is poor cover across other features as well, reiterating the importance of paying close attention to a policy’s PDS (product disclosure statement) before you commit.

Read the full reviews for each of these policies in our home and contents insurance review.

The mid-level policy that keeps getting more expensive 

Honey’s home and contents policy scores average on cover, and is on this list mostly because of price.

“Honey was never a particularly strong performer, but up until about mid-2024 they were balancing price and cover well,” Daniel says.

“Over the past 18 months they seem to have stopped competing on price, to the point where this mid-level policy is one of the most expensive on the market.”

In the same way that AHM and Bupa sell white label versions of the Huddle products, Aldi sells a white label version of the Honey policy. Honey and Aldi have exactly the same policy wording, except Aldi is about 25% cheaper than Honey.

Honey spruiks an 8% premium discount if you install their sensors in your home, which we haven’t considered in the Price score. If we had, the overall score would only increase by a few points.

This policy is mostly on the list because of price, although there are some bad points on cover worth mentioning:

• No underinsurance safety net
• Very limited cover for animal damage: no cover for damage caused by pests or parasites, or by any animal kept at the home. While birds can cause serious carnage given the right circumstances, this policy only covers breakage of door and window glass.
• The temporary accommodation benefit is the bare minimum: cover for up to 12 months of accommodation costs, capped at 10% of your building sum insured. More generous policies also include some sort of cover for pets (e.g. a boarding benefit), as well as other costs like removalists, rental bond, and fees for utility connection and lease breaking.

The policy that offers better cover, but for a premium price  

There is one policy in our list of low-scorers that looks very good on paper but has been priced out of contention. 

GIO Platinum offers top-performing cover, receiving a cover score of 75% which is amongst the best in our comparison. However, it was the single worst performer on price, meaning you’ll find better value elsewhere. 

Daniel says: “This policy is significantly more expensive than comparable ‘premium cover’ policies, even a near-identical product from the same underwriter. We compared GIO’s quotes against its competitors at nearly 2400 addresses, and this policy was the most expensive in 38% of scenarios.

“No matter which insurer you are currently with, if you haven’t switched for a while, you’re likely missing out on savings. 

“If you’re willing to put in the effort you could theoretically change your insurer every year or so to take advantage of discounts available to new customers. But this only pays off if you make sure you’re switching to a good-value policy every time.”

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When one home insurer after another says you’ll have to pay premiums you can’t afford because your house is at risk of flooding, it can seem like an existential threat. Without insurance, regaining your economic security would be a very long haul. 

It’s a predicament affecting many. A report released by the Australia Institute in May this year revealed that 533,229 homes in Australia were underinsured, and 344,523 were not insured at all. In around half of these cases, it was because the homeowners couldn’t afford the premiums. 

The average uninsured homeowner owed more than $283,000 on their mortgage, while underinsured homeowners owed more than $373,000, according to the research. 

“If their home was lost or badly damaged, they could find themselves staring at homelessness or bankruptcy,” the report warns.  

It’s a bleak prospect, but how accurate are the risk ratings that are making home insurance so costly? ĚÇĐÄVlog has heard from a number of homeowners who’ve been all but priced out of the market after their properties were deemed a flood risk. Yet in many cases these people say they don’t live in a high risk area, as confirmed by their local councils. 

In its submission to the Parliamentary Inquiry into the insurance industry’s response to major flooding around Australia in 2022, the Insurance Council of Australia (ICA) estimated that around 675,000 (4.4%) of properties face a greater than one percent risk of flood each year. This boils down to a one-in-100-year flood risk. 

The data came from the National Flood Information Database (NFID), which holds around 13.7 million property addresses. It’s owned by the risk assessment firm Risk Frontiers and is commissioned by the ICA for use as a proprietary tool by most insurers in Australia. 

It’s what they use to rate flood risk, based on studies and mapping contributed by local, state and territory governments. They pay the ICA to access this information.   

But the data on flood risk is only as up to date as the most recent council studies, many of which go back to 2018, and not all flood studies are shared with Risk Frontiers. And because the ICA didn’t create and doesn’t own the original flood risk information, the NFID generally only contains details of the studies, not the complete reports. It’s a patchwork of information, rather than a single source of truth.

No access to fair prices 

A greater than one percent flood risk would seem like a remote risk, but, as the parliamentary report puts it, “For many property owners whose properties are exposed to a one per cent or greater flood risk, they are not able to access insurance for flood at actuarially fair prices”.

ĚÇĐÄVlog recently reported the case of a homeowner in the Illawarra area of greater Sydney whose local council told him his home was not at significant risk of flood. But his premiums had nevertheless increased to the point of unaffordability, and other insurers were giving similarly high quotes. 

An insurance broker told him it didn’t matter what the council said; the area he lived in was flagged as a flood risk on the NFID. He was looking at not being able to afford to protect the biggest financial asset his family had.  

It is far from an isolated case. In 2023, we reported that nine out of ten Australian households had seen their home insurance premiums increase. For some homeowners, the increases were extreme. 

According to the Actuaries Institute, 15% of Australian households – about 1.6 million – were experiencing home insurance affordability stress as of March 2024, which it defines as annual premiums exceeding four weeks of gross household income. 

‘We need a market that works for everyone’ 

Tyrone Shandiman, Chair of the advocacy group the Australian Consumers Insurance Lobby (ACIL), tells ĚÇĐÄVlog that the market has ceased to function as intended for many people. 

ACIL is made up of consumer advocates as well as insurance professionals. Shandiman is a broker who sees homeowners being priced out of the market firsthand. 

“The market works for a majority of people, but there are outliers that just cannot afford insurance or in some cases even get it, and that’s not acceptable,” Shandiman says. “We need a market that works for everyone. Insurance is an essential service.” 

Shandiman acknowledges that the tools insurers use to measure risk are never perfect, but the NFID’s shortcomings can lead to unfair outcomes.  

“I’ve seen cases where the corner of the property that does not have a building on it is deemed to be in a flood zone, but the part where the house actually stands is not. It’s so far up the hill that it’s a completely different risk. Yet all of a sudden the homeowner is facing excessive premiums due to flood risk. There’s a very cut and dry approach taken by insurers. They just follow what the database says. It’s very hard to have an insurer reassess a premium when their system says there’s a flood risk.” 

Speaking hypothetically, Shandiman suggests that an arrangement in which all insurers gauge flood risk through a proprietary database owned by the ICA would seem to meet the definition of cartel conduct. 

“When insurers’ pricing and underwriting practices all draw from the database, there’s no variation in how insurers assess floods. And that means there’s less competition in the market. How is that legal? It’s convenient for insurers to have this information, but it brings about some problems for consumers when they’re all using the same database to work out the risk of a particular address.”

Businesses must compete

When we asked the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission about this in general terms (the ACCC won’t comment on specific cases), a spokesperson told us that businesses “must make decisions about pricing independently, rather than in consultation or through co-operation with competitors. Competing businesses risk contravening the Competition and Consumer Act if they reach arrangements or understandings between themselves about how they will set their prices, instead of competing.”

The ICA didn’t respond to our questions about whether insurers all using the same flood risk information could be considered non-competitive, but a spokesperson told us flood studies “can be costly and complex exercises that often take years to complete, so an older study isn’t necessarily inaccurate or out of date”. 

“The only way to reduce premiums over the long term is to reduce risk through greater investment in mitigation projects like levees, dams, home raising and buybacks where appropriate,” the spokesperson said, adding that the ICA “is in ongoing conversation with all levels of government about the need for mitigation and continues to advocate against developments on floodplains”.

More transparency needed 

For Daniel Melser, a senior research fellow at Monash University, transparency is the missing element in how home insurance premiums are determined. 

Melser that making the NFID available to insurers but not homeowners makes Australia an outlier compared to countries such as the UK, the US and Netherlands, where flood risk information is accessible to both parties.

In the US, the federal government subsidises flood insurance for homeowners who can’t afford it through its National Flood Insurance Program and also bails out insurance companies faced with an unsustainable number of flood claims. No such system exists in Australia. 

A further complication is that the data in the NFID only gives a partial picture.

“It can help identify where flood studies have been done, but doesn’t offer consistent, property-level flood risk data,” Melser writes.

Insurers also use other risk-rating tools that its customers are not privy to. In a recent ruling by the Australian Financial Complaints Authority, a homeowner’s complaint about a 60% premium increase by Honey Insurance (underwritten by RACQ) was knocked back on the grounds that its new geocoding software had detected higher risks. 

Several factors are leading to rising premiums, including climate change and the resulting weather events, the cost of reinsurance for insurers, and the increasing costs of rebuilding, Melser says. But the explanations homeowners receive for price hikes often lack specificity. 

“Currently households have limited information about what is driving their insurance premium,” Melser tells ĚÇĐÄVlog. “This should change. More transparent pricing by insurers will make clear to households what is driving their bill and why.”

And transparency can lead to a greater focus on reducing exposure to risk, not only through government-funded flood barriers and other infrastructure but also through building more weather-resistant homes. 

“Part of the tardiness in reducing overall risk levels is because we don’t currently have transparency around the benefit of these investments through pricing transparency,” Melser says. 

“We need to build a virtuous cycle of having visibility of insurance pricing, undertaking investments to reduce risk at the regional or property level, and then seeing the insurance premiums decline as a result of these investments. The first step in this process is around pricing transparency.”

The way it works now, the insurance industry is playing a lead role in managing flood risk information. And transparency about its accuracy or how it’s used to determine premiums does not seem to be on the cards.

The post How accurate are the flood risk ratings behind home insurance premium hikes?  appeared first on ĚÇĐÄVlog.

Stories of people priced out of the home insurance market are not hard to come by in northern Australia, where the risk of extreme weather events have pushed premiums well out of reach for many households. 

As anyone faced with such a predicament would know, not being able to afford to protect your most valuable asset when economic survival is already tenuous is a deeply personal issue. The financial futures of families and loved ones are on the line. 

The Strata Community Association Queensland has cited cases of unit owners in Far North Queensland facing premiums of $13,500 a year.

The situation has gone critical in Northern Australia, but such stories are increasingly not hard to come by around the rest of Australia as well. 

As climate change ramps up the frequency and ferocity of natural disasters, some insurers have flat-out declined to offer cover in certain areas, leaving homeowners exposed to personal and financial catastrophe. Behind the scenes of devastation lie upended lives and communities that endure ongoing hardship. 

Since 2020, there have been 14 weather events across Australia that were declared catastrophes either by state governments or the insurance industry or both, and eight other events where berserk weather wrought major damage. 

Over the past five years, cyclones and the like have led to $22.5 billion in claims payouts by Australian insurers – a 67% increase over the previous five years. Premiums have gone up accordingly across Australia, but especially in North Queensland cities such as Townsville, Mackay, and Cairns. 

In these areas, insurance unaffordability has escalated into a full-blown crisis.

Reinsurance pool helping a little

In 2022, the federal government established a cyclone reinsurance pool in an effort to bring premiums down in high-risk areas. (Reinsurance is what insurers take out to help cover the avalanche of claims that often follow cyclones and other weather events.)

Australia’s biggest insurers were required to take part in the reinsurance pool by the end of 2023, while smaller ones had until the end of 2024. 

Insurers pay premiums to the pool and can claim from it when an extreme weather event occurs. This safety net is supposed to mean they can offer lower premiums to homeowners, since the cost of reinsurance normally makes up about 17% of a homeowner’s premium. And the pool seems to be working, at least to an extent. 

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), which was tasked with keeping an eye on whether the reinsurance pool was doing its job, recently released its fourth annual report on the subject. 

There’s good news and bad news. For insurance customers facing a medium to high risk of cyclones, premiums have gone down by about 11%. 

But chair of the Australian Consumers Insurance Lobby (ACIL) Tyrone Shandiman says people in high-risk areas still pay twice as much as those who face negligible risks. 

“The gap is beginning to narrow – but more must be done to deliver fair and affordable premiums for Australians in disaster-prone regions. We cannot accept the current gap – over 100% – as the new normal.”

Spokesperson for the Townsville Lot Owners Group Andrew Turnour says the government’s reinsurance pool has brought about only “patchy reductions” for strata insurance in the region. 

“Some worst-case victims are now being denied renewal insurance after their 2024 policies were jacked up by 35%,” Turnour says. “The ACCC reported in 2016 that 17% of properties in North Queensland were uninsured. Recent estimates put that figure at 30%.” 

Many people in areas that are most at risk still have to go without home insurance, Shandiman says. 

As for the rest of us, premiums have gone nowhere but up – in some cases way up. 

“Premiums remain very high for many households and small businesses and are generally rising in most parts of the country,” the ACCC said in late July when the report was released. 

ĚÇĐÄVlog campaigns and communications director Rosie Thomas says premium monitoring should be expanded beyond high-risk areas. 

“According to our latest national surveys, Australians’ worry about home insurance has never been higher. Yet, most remain in the dark about the reasons behind their soaring premiums,” Thomas says, 

“The ACCC’s ongoing insurance monitoring is delivering crucial insight into premium trends. We’re calling on the government to broaden the ACCC’s remit, extending scrutiny to both car and home insurance markets, to ensure pricing is transparent and fair.”

Home insurance required for mortgage

In early July, a police officer and father or two who lives in the Sutherland Shire of Sydney contacted ĚÇĐÄVlog with a tale that’s become all too familiar. 

“I’ve just been forced to make one of the most difficult decisions of my life – to go without home insurance for the first time in over a decade,” James says. 

“Why? Because my premiums have exploded from $2000 two years ago, to $3300 last year and now between $8000 and $11,000 this year — despite no change in my property, no new flood risk, and no excessive claims history.” 

Leaving his home uninsured goes against the terms and conditions of his mortgage. “So I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place,” James says. 

His home is in an area that’s been flagged as potentially prone to flooding on insurers’ databases, but he recently obtained documents from the Sutherland Council indicating that his property is not at risk. 

“Yet now, every insurer either refuses to quote or offers only unaffordable premiums,” James says. “One broker told me point blank ‘our postcode has a blanket flood loading — it doesn’t matter what your specific risk is’.”

Suncorp settles AFCA case 

Another home insurance customer we recently heard from, Andrew, took his case to the Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA) on the grounds that his Suncorp premiums had climbed 144% since 2019. 

Andrew says Suncorp’s explanations for steadily ratcheting up his premiums – which included an increase in the value of his land, the rate of inflation, weather events, improved risk data and rebuilding costs – amounted to a blanket justification that didn’t align with reality. 

“There have been no claims or changes to policy during this period,” Andrew says. “When I questioned Suncorp about the reason for the increase, they blamed inflation and weather. I presented them with data to show that a 144% increase was unjustified.” 

The data included Bureau of Meteorology stats on weather activity in Southeast Queensland and Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) data on construction costs during the period he had a Suncorp policy. Andrew says Suncorp’s explanations simply don’t stack up against the evidence. 

As we have reported earlier, AFCA will only rule in a policyholder’s favour if the insurer has made an error in calculating a premium increase. But determining what constitutes an error is not straightforward. 

In November last year, AFCA’s lead ombudsman for insurance, Emma Curtis, told us “we don’t have the power to consider complaints just because someone is generally unhappy about the increase”. 

An AFCA determination that went against a homeowner who filed a complaint about a big premium increase says the agency “cannot consider a complaint about rating factors and weightings applied by the insurer to determine the base premium, which is commercially sensitive information”.

But Andrew maintains that the flawed reasoning given by Suncorp for the premium increases over the years amounts to a series of errors. 

He asked AFCA to force Suncorp to provide “a clear, transparent, and substantiated explanation for the premium increase” or recalculate his latest premium increase in line with historical inflation data published by the ABS.

After initially rebuffing his claims, the insurer ended up paying Andrew a settlement of $2500 to drop the AFCA case. 

Unaffordable insurance ‘a silent crisis’

James, from the Sutherland Shire, calls the lack of insurance affordability “a silent crisis for ordinary Australians”. 

“This isn’t just happening to me,” he says. “I’ve spoken to neighbours, friends in surrounding suburbs, and dozens of people in local community Facebook groups. Families who’ve paid their premiums for decades – some of whom have never made a claim – are now being quoted $7000, $9000, even over $12,000 for basic coverage.” 

“Many, like me, are being forced to go without. This is no longer about insurance — it’s about who gets to live with financial security and who doesn’t.”

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