Your home is likely to be the most expensive thing you own. If it gets damaged by a falling tree, burst pipes or a storm, you'll be patting yourself on the back for organising home insurance. Here's a quick breakdown of what you get:
The ability to rebuild. If an unexpected disaster strikes, you'll be able to repair or rebuild from scratch.
Protection of your possessions. Whether it's family heirlooms, your cosy sofa or even your Xbox, the contents of your home aren't just stuff. With contents insurance, you can repair or replace your possessions if they're damaged by fire, storm, theft or other insured events.
To meet your obligations. If you take out a mortgage to buy a home, it's a condition of your loan contract to take out home insurance – the lender wants to be sure your property is protected if something happens.
Peace of mind. With the right policy in place, you can rest assured you'll have the financial support you need if something major happens to your home or its contents.
The types of home insurance you can compare
Home and contents insurance
This is combined insurance that covers your house and your possessions within it (most of the options in the table above are home and contents policies). It'll cover the cost of repairing or rebuilding your home if it's damaged from an insurable event, like a storm. I it also covers your possessions – furniture, electronics, carpets, curtains and clothing – from loss, damage and theft. You can also pay for extra cover for items you take outside of the house (like electronics or jewellery).
Contents insurance covers just your possessions in the home. This includes jewellery, electronics, carpets, curtains, furniture, appliances and furnishings. This is a great option for renters or those homeowners who live in an apartment.
This is stand-alone cover for only your home. It also covers other fixtures on your property, such as garages, fences, and sheds. It protects you against a bunch of natural events, such as fire, storm damage and (depending on the policy) floods.
Landlord insurance protects your home against theft, malicious damage, loss of rent, as well as natural events like storms, flood and fire. It's a smart idea if you're renting your home out to strangers.
When you live in a group living setting, like a block of apartments, you need cover for the building and common property like lifts, pools, car parks, gardens, balconies, driveways and even walls.
What does home insurance cover?
Fires
For example, a fire or bushfire destroys your home. Only some policies cover accidental fires.
Storms
For example, if wind from a storm damages your roof.
Theft
For example, replacing locks and stolen items after a break-in.
Impact
For example, if a tree falls and damages part of your home.
Leaks
For example, if a pipe bursts and ruins your floors.
"Given Australia's increasing frequency of natural disasters, it's crucial to understand how home insurance can support you. Temporary accommodation is vital for families displaced by events like bushfires and floods. Portable homes, often covered under home insurance policies, provide a secure and immediate solution, ensuring that families have a safe place to stay while their permanent homes are being restored."
Step 1: Evaluate how much your home and possessions are worth. When you take out home insurance, you give a dollar value to your insurer for how much your home is worth. The cost of home insurance for you will depend on this figure. Insure your house for too little and you risk being underinsured and out of pocket come claim time. Overinsure your house and you'll pay higher premiums.
Step 2: Determine what kind of cover you need. Do you want to cover your home and everything in it? Then opt for home & contents insurance. Only want to cover your contents? Just your building? Figure out what kind of things you want to cover and find the policy that fits those needs. For example, a policy that offers total replacement cover might cost more but will also ensure you won't be underinsured. You'll also pay more if you want to get covered for accidental damage, but if you've got toddlers running around this is a no-brainer and could save you more cash in the long run.
Step 3: Compare insurers. Once you've figured out how much your home and contents is worth and you know what policy you're after, start comparing insurers. Be sure to look at what the policy features as well as price.
Meet our experts
Collectively, our experts have over 12 years of experience helping people find home insurance.
We've written hundreds of guides (211 so far and counting) and are passionate about presenting the most up-to-date and relevant information for you.
We can help provide answers during major weather events and natural disasters such as La Niña, the recent Australian floods or during bushfire season.
You can regularly catch our experts on TV shows such as Sunrise and 7News dishing out the latest home insurance savings tips.
To prevent water damage, it's worth making sure your gutters don't become blocked by leaves and other debris this autumn. Home insurance typically won't cover you for damage related to something like this. This is because it's considered general maintenance – that is, something you ought to be doing yourself.
Just having an awareness of what your insurance cover amount is and what your policy covers you for will make a difference. If you just haven't reviewed it for a number of years, it may be time to do that.
Trying to navigate a product disclosure statement can get overwhelming quickly. So I understand why people get confused about what's included in their policies. When I'm doing research, I just Ctrl+F a keyword or phrase and it saves me a lot of time and frustration.
One thing I've learned is that every insurer prices its risk in really different ways. Something as simple as the policyholder having a birthday can change the risk profile of the policy and change the premium. I compared options in 2022 when my home insurance premium went up by 33%, and I saved over $1,400! It really pays to shop around.
One of the most common accidents is when people have their smartphones accidentally damaged. The great news is most content insurance can cover your phone in and outside of your home. To ensure your phone is properly covered, have it specified on your policy.
I pay for home insurance annually, whenever I can afford to. Insurers often charge more if you pay for your policy once per month. I'm a firm believer that staying loyal to an insurer never pays off with home insurance. I'd encourage consumers to compare at least 4 or 5 different policies when your renewal date creeps closer.
Budget Direct is our 2023 value winner in home insurance.
On average, it's cheaper than most insurers and it covers most of the essentials such as fires, storms and theft. You can take out extra cover for things like floods and accidental damage.
QBE is our green insurer of the year for the fourth consecutive year. It's on track to be net-zero by 2030, a portion of your premiums go towards environmental causes and it can pay for some swanky environmental upgrades if your home is damaged. Plus, it's one of the most comprehensive home insurance policies you can get in Australia.
No? Maybe our customer satisfaction awards can help. We teamed up with research firm Dynata and asked hundreds of Australians for their opinion about their home insurance. Our 2022 winners are:
Global warming is to blame for a lot. It's also a major reason home insurance costs are rising. You don't need to just accept the price increase though. When your renewal comes up, shop around. You'll likely find somewhere cheaper.
Take advantage of sign-up discounts
Home insurers like to offer sign-up discounts to get you on board. Some can genuinely save you a lot of money, like 30% off your first year. If you want to continue saving though, keep switching every 12 months because insurers often increase existing customers' prices significantly.
Install home security
Insurers like safe homes, so make yours like Fort Knox (internal alarms, external sirens or external strobe lights will suffice) and some will charge you less.
Increase your excess
This is a specified amount you need to pay whenever you make a claim. All home insurance policies have them. Most will let you increase your excess in return for cheaper premiums. There's a downside though – making a smaller-value claim won't be worth it.
"When my husband and I turned 60 and became semi-retired we wanted to put a stop to unnecessary purchases/bills so we could spend time enjoying our retirement. When we received our insurance renewal (from a company we'd been with for over 5 years), I was blown away to learn not only were they increasing my premium by 60%, but when I compared their basic cover against Honey Insurance's cover (with added benefits) I was saving over $700 a year!"
Donna and Kevin Field
NSW-based homeowners
Read our home insurance reviews
Want to find out more about a specific insurance brand? We've reviewed over 60 of them. Here's a bunch of the most popular ones:
Your lender will usually require you to have home and contents insurance when you buy a home. Unlike car insurance though, it's not usually a legal requirement. However, it is the biggest asset that you own, so it's incredibly risky to go without it.
We gathered over 200 quotes from 16 different insurers and found that the average cost of home insurance in Australia is $160 a month. However, this is going to vary based on your own living situation.
The cost of home insurance can depend on different factors including the following:
The value of your home and belongings. The more expensive, the higher your premiums are likely to be to cover the costs.
The area that you live in. Is your home in a bushfire-prone area or one where burglary is common? The higher the risk of damage or loss, the more expensive your home insurance will be.
There are a few different ways. You could choose a higher excess. Paying for your premium annually, rather than monthly, you lower the cost of your policy (in some cases).
Dropping your cover level could also reduce your upfront premium cost, but it can lead to underinsurance.
The best home insurance policy is the one that suits your specific needs. To help you decide, our home insurance experts analysed over 30 different benefits from insurers we work with and selected 5 different policies based on popularity, features and price. You can find out more on our best home insurance guide.
No, you don't need building insurance since you don't own the property – in most cases, your strata insurance will cover you. However, it may be worth getting renters insurance. This can cover you for damage to your own possessions.
You shouldn't need building insurance if you live in an apartment because the strata fees you pay will cover you. However, you may still want to get contents insurance to cover damage to your items.
During the quote process, most home insurers will ask you how much you want to insure your building for. This is often called the sum insured. To do this, you will need to estimate how much it would cost to rebuild your property if it was destroyed. The easiest way to do this is to use a building and contents calculator or use Honey Insurance which can calculate this figure for you.
Sum insured is when you choose the maximum amount of cover you want for your home. For example, if you think your home will cost $1,500,000 to rebuild from scratch, this is the sum insured you'd select. On the other hand, total replacement insurance covers the market value of rebuilding your home.
Sum insured is riskier (and usually cheaper) because there's a chance you won't value the home properly. For example, if your sum insured is $1,500,000 but your home ends up costing $1,800,000 to rebuild, you'll have to pay the $300,000 yourself. Find out more about total replacement cover in our full guide.
Most home insurers Finder works with automatically cover flood damage. However, it's an optional add-on with some brands such as Budget Direct and Qantas.
According to the 2023 Finder Customer Satisfaction Awards, Youi is the highest rated home insurer. Youi came in first place overall for customer satisfaction, scoring 4.39/5. It scored highly in all surveyed states for customer service, features and benefits, ease of application and value for money. On average 94% of Australians surveyed nationally said they would recommend Youi to a friend. See the methodology for scoring.
Gary Ross Hunter was an editor at Finder, specialising in insurance. He’s been writing about life, travel, home, car, pet and health insurance for over 6 years and regularly appears as an insurance expert in publications including The Sydney Morning Herald, The Guardian and news.com.au. Gary holds a Kaplan Tier 2 General Advice General Insurance certification which meets the requirements of ASIC Regulatory Guide 146 (RG146). See full bio
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Gary Ross has written 644 Finder guides across topics including:
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