Finder’s car insurance methodology

What are the Finder car insurance awards?

Finder's car insurance awards is a ratings methodology that compares both value and features across 35+ comprehensive car insurance policies. To determine our winners, we got 1,800+ quotes for 37 comprehensive car insurance policies based on 60 different profiles. This methodology has been curated to help drivers find the best car insurance policy for their needs without having to sift through all the jargon.

Why you can trust our research

Selection criteria

The criteria for Finder's car insurance awards was determined by our insights team and car insurance experts. In order to be eligible:

• It must be a comprehensive car insurance policy
• Policies must be available to buy online or over the phone
• We must be able to get quotes for at least 30 different customer profiles more info button
• Policies must have been in the market for at least 12 months

Scoring

Metrics were scored using either the tiered scores when dealing with categorical data points, or a dynamic scoring when dealing with numeric data. Finder's dynamic scoring means a product's metric is scored in comparison to the data points of all the other competitor products.

Metrics	Scoring method
Agreed or market value	Manual scoring
Child seat baby capsules	Binary scoring
Child seat baby capsules details	Manual scoring
Choice of repairer	Manual scoring
Emergency transport accommodation	Manual scoring
Emergency transport accommodation_details	Manual scoring
Essential emergency repairs	Manual scoring
Essential emergency repair details	Manual scoring
Fire and theft	Manual scoring
Floodcover	Manual scoring
Hire car accident	Manual scoring
Hire car accident details	Manual scoring
Hire car no fault accident	Manual scoring
Hire car no fault accident details	Manual scoring
Hire car theft	Manual scoring
Hire car theft details	Manual scoring
Key replacement	Manual scoring
Key replacement details	Manual scoring
Legal liability	Manual scoring
Lifetime guarantee on repairs	Manual scoring
Newcar replacement	Manual scoring
Newcar replacement details	Manual scoring
Personal effects	Manual scoring
Personal effects details	Manual scoring
Restricted driver option	Manual scoring
Restricted driver option details	Manual scoring
Roadside assistance	Manual scoring
Storm	Manual scoring
Towing	Manual scoring
Reduced excess windscreen	Manual scoring
Reduced excess windscreen repair	Manual scoring
Quotes for 20 year olds	Dynamic Scoring
Quotes for 30 year olds	Dynamic Scoring
Quotes for 40 year olds	Dynamic Scoring
Quotes for 50 year olds	Dynamic Scoring
Quotes for 60 year olds	Dynamic Scoring

Weights

Driver profile

Our 60 different driver profiles are formed based on 5 different ages (20, 30, 40, 50 and 60-year-olds), 2 genders (male and female) and 6 states (NSW, QLD, VIC, SA, TAS, WA). The car used in each quote was a 2019 Toyota Corolla Ascent 4 Door Sedan. We selected an approximate $700-$900 excess for each policy.

We didn't include quotes for NT and ACT because the sample size was too small.

Final award score

The award score is designed to make it easier for you to compare insurance policies side-by-side. It's based on the same information we gather as part of the Finder Awards. The final award score is calculated by multiplying the score for each metric by the weight percentage and summing the weighted scores:

Finder’s 2023 car insurance methodology

The 2023 Finder Score is based on a combination of price and features. Features account for 50% of the score, price accounts for 50%. See the breakdown below.

• Table
• Pie chart

What are the Finder customer satisfaction awards?

The Finder customer satisfaction awards recognise Australia's favourite brands across a huge number of categories. We survey thousands of real Australians to understand how they feel about their recent product purchases to help you make a decision about what product to get. It's an independent awards program calculated by our data and insights team. Commercial partnerships do not influence the results in any way.

In total, we gave out awards to 7 different car insurance brands:

• Customer satisfaction: NSW
• Customer satisfaction: VIC
• Customer satisfaction: QLD
• Customer satisfaction: SA
• Customer satisfaction: WA
• Customer satisfaction: National
• Roadside assistance customer satisfaction: National

Finder car insurance customer satisfaction awards methodology

• The recency period varied between 3 months and 3 years.
• We got a minimum of 35 responses for each car insurer for 5 different states (NT, TAS and ACT were not included because the sample size was too small).
• Respondents were asked whether they would recommend the car insurer to a friend. This result was scored out of 5 as a percentage. For example, if 80% of respondents said they would recommend a product, it received a score of 4 out of 5.
• Customers were asked how they would rate each car insurer overall on a scale between 1 and 5 and in terms of:
  • Customer service
  • Features and benefits
  • Ease of application
  • Value for money
• The overall score for NSW, QLD, WA, VIC and SA was calculated as an average of the 5 metrics outlined above.
• To determine our national winner, we calculated the average score from the top ranking brands from each of the 5 states we looked at.

Our research in numbers

Total number of responses for NSW: 1,199
Total number of responses for VIC: 1,339
Total number of responses for QLD: 1,281
Total number of responses for WA: 941
Total number of responses for SA: 1,027
Total number of responses for roadside assistance: 626

What are the Finder Green Awards?

The Finder Green Awards aim to identify sustainability leaders across some of our main comparison categories including banking, insurance, superannuation, utilities and travel. We highlight the winners on our review pages and comparison tables to make it easier for you to compare policies and know that you're purchasing a policy with a more sustainable brand.

Finder's Green Car Insurer of the Year methodology

We use a dynamic scoring system to decide the winner in each of the industry categories of the Finder Green Awards. Rather than awarding a set number of points for certain values, Finder's dynamic scoring system awards points relative to the other submissions by adjusting scores based on the actual range of submitted values for each category. These sources will then be adjusted to reflect the weightings shown as percentages in the tables below:

Eligibility criteria: Company must have offered insurance products to consumers in Australia in the 12 months prior to 31 December 2021.

Finder's third party insurance research

Our team gathered 228 quotes for third party property damage car insurance and 198 quotes for third party fire and theft car insurance.

We used 3 different age profiles, 1 gender and 5 different states across Australia.

• Ages: 20, 30, & 40 year-olds
• Gender: female
• States: NSW, VIC, QLD, WA, SA

The car model used was a white 2007 Mazda 3 Neo BK Series 2 Auto 5DR hatchback.
A total of 426 quotes were collected from 20 different insurers across 15 different driver profiles.

How we determined our market list of car insurers

To get our market list of car insurers in Australia, we looked at products in the Finder database and Find An Insurer, a referral service run by the Insurance Council of Australia (ICA) that provides a list of general car insurance products available in Australia.

We then used ahrefs, a software company that monitors search engine traffic, to see which insurers were the most popular.

We considered it to be a popular car insurer if it had 500 or more monthly searches. This landed us at a list of 30 car insurers.

We then also excluded any specialist car insurance providers and single state providers from our list.

Out of the final list, there were only 3 car insurers we hadn't analysed.

Keep in mind that we haven't assessed every single car insurance provider in the market. We only assessed the most popular car insurance providers in the market.

Frequently asked questions

• How often are policies reviewed for the Finder awards and rating?

  We currently run our Finder car insurance awards and rating once a year. The 2022 awards are based on policies that were available to take out during the 2021–22 period.

• Do you rate all products available in the market?

  We endeavour to assess the majority of products in the market but this isn't always possible and it may be that not every product or brand in the market was included for judging.

• Why aren't some insurers included in the final results?

  Sometimes we aren't able to include an insurer in our final results because we were unable to get enough quotes from them. For our results to remain fair, we aim to get a minimum of 30 quotes based on different customer profiles. If we aren't able to do this, we don't include the insurer in our final results.