Best home insurance — a deep dive into 40+ policies

The best home insurance for you will depend on your budget and personal circumstances. Our experts have chosen a bunch of picks that will suit a range of people, but these should only be used as a guide. You should always read the PDS to know if a product is a good fit for you.

Best home insurance in December 2024

1. Best for Customer Satisfaction: Budget Direct home and contents
2. Best for Unique Features: Honey home and contents
3. Best for Floods: QBE home and contents
4. Best Comprehensiveness: Australia Post home and contents

Best for customer satisfaction: Budget Direct Home & Contents Insurance

Our verdict:

Budget Direct Home & Contents Insurance is a well-rounded policy that delivers on all fronts. You can add as many features as you’d like, it’s typically pretty cheap and it has great customer service. In fact, Budget Direct recently won our Finder Customer Satisfaction Award for home insurance. It’s also been given a generous Finder Score of 9.2/10.

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Pros & cons:

• Budget Direct came in first place for customer satisfaction, scoring 4.25/5. This is because it scored highly in areas of customer service, features and benefits, ease of application and value for money.
• Budget Direct is one of the cheapest providers, according to Finder research.
• New customers can get up to 30% off their first year's premium - that could mean hundreds in savings.

• Flood cover is not included as standard.
• The 30% discount only applies to the first year.
• You’ll have to pay extra if you want to pay monthly instead of annually.

Best for unique features: Honey Home & Contents Insurance

Our verdict:

Honey Home & Contents Insurance has thorough coverage with generous benefit limits. That’s why it’s been given a Finder Score of 8.3/10..

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Pros & cons:

• Honey's home and contents policy includes a few benefits as standard that would come at an additional cost for some other insurers, like jewellery and tools of trade cover.
• It has a higher benefit limit than other popular insurers for home office contents.
• Optional use of smart sensors in the home means that avoidable damage can be prevented, which also leads to a cheaper premium.

• $Honey doesn’t offer any underinsurance protection option.
• Honey covers up to $500 for guest contents but some other brands cover up to $5,000.
• You’ll need to pay extra for electrical burnout cover.

Best for floods: QBE Home & Contents Insurance

Our verdict:

QBE Home & Contents Insurance automatically covers flood damage. It's included in the 'insured event' storm, storm surge, rain, hail or flood. This makes claiming a little simpler. With most insurers, storms and floods are considered 2 separate insured events. This means if there is storm and flood damage to your home, you may need to pay 2 excesses – but not with QBE. That’s why it’s been given a Finder score of 9.6/10.

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Pros & cons:

• One of the only insurers to cover forced evacuation by a government authority.
• Very comprehensive cover across the board – storms, fire, theft, flood and more.
• It’s well priced for all it offers. Our most recent data shows QBE is one of the cheapest providers.

• It's competitively priced but not as cheap as some budget insurers.
• Like other insurers, QBE won't cover damage due to lack of maintenance.
• Paying extra for accidental damage cover (an add-on with most insurers).

Best for Comprehensiveness: Australia Post Home & Contents Insurance

Our verdict:

You get a lot for your money. Australia Post’s ​​policies are issued by QBE, one of the world’s biggest insurers. Our research shows it’s much cheaper though - a bit like getting a Michelin star meal for the price of a Big Mac. That’s why it’s been given a Finder score of 9.9/10.

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Pros & cons:

• It covers storms, storm surges, rain, hail, lightning and flood damage.
• It covers fires, bushfires and burnout of electric motors.
• The sum insured safeguard helps you avoid underinsurance and out of pocket expenses.

• You need to pay extra to cover items aways from home aka portable contents cover.
• The discount. It's only 10% off. Some will knock 30% off your first year.
• There's cheaper insurers out there (e.g. Budget Direct and AAMI).

Helping you get the best home insurance in Australia

You've probably noticed that your home insurance has increased a lot in the last 12 months. (Our research shows it's gone up by 19% thanks to climate disasters and the cost of living crisis).

We do a lot at Finder, but we can't single-handedly fix the climate. We can help you keep prices down though.

That’s why our insurance team has hand-picked 4 home and contents insurance policies. They’re based on 2024 Finder Awards data, AFCA complaints, customer reviews and a bunch of other important factors, such as flood and bushfire cover.

All the policies can pay to repair your home and its contents if damaged by an insured event such as a fire, bushfire or storm. Not all cover floods though – we've highlighted which ones in each of our reviews.

"We've had a leak in our home before, and even though repairs were covered by insurance, fixing the actual issue fell to us – which cost over $16,000. So, the home sensor pack Honey sent us gave us extra peace of mind that we don't have any sneaky leaks or hidden issues."

Sarah Megginson

Head of editorial

Top 5 home insurance companies in Australia

Want to know how people actually feel about their insurer? So do we! That's why we surveyed a bunch of Australians about their home insurance provider. We asked them to rate them based on: customer service, features & benefits, ease of application, value for money and reliability. Here's who came out on top.

Brand	Overall satisfaction rating
	★★★★★ 4.25/5
	★★★★★ 4.20/5
	★★★★★ 4.11/5
	★★★★★ 3.40/5
	★★★★★ 3.36/5

We've also researched and reviewed a bunch of home insurance companies to help you decide.

If the brand you're looking for isn't here, check out our directory.

FAQs

• What is the best home insurance company?

  There are a lot of home insurance companies that could be deemed ‘the best’ but it all depends on what your individual circumstances are and what your needs look like. To give you a place to start, here’s some of our recent award winners:

  • Best for customer satisfaction: Budget Direct
  • Best for value: AAMI
  • Best for features: Australia Post

• What home insurance company has the highest customer satisfaction in Australia?

  Budget Direct won the 2024 Finder Award for Customer Satisfaction. This is because its own customers rated it highly in the following areas: customer service, features & benefits, ease of application and reliability.

• How much should you insure your house for Australia?

  You should insure your house for the amount it would cost to rebuild your home if it was completely destroyed. This is really hard to figure out yourself but calculators can help.

  Honey home insurance also has a really great calculator that uses third party data to estimate your rebuild costs. You can use it for free when you get a quote.

• How do I estimate the value of my contents for insurance?

  You’ll need to consider all the items in your home and how much it’d cost to replace each of them. It can help to go room by room and list what’s there; furniture, art, appliances, etc. A quick google can help you understand how much you’d need to pay to replace each item.

• Is it cheaper to combine home and contents insurance?

  Not always - it could be cheaper to separate if there’s sign up discounts with each provider. It’s always worth getting quotes for a few scenarios and going from there.

Written by

Peta Taylor

Publisher of Insurance

Peta Taylor is a publisher at Finder, working across all of insurance. She's been analysing product disclosure statements and publishing articles for over 2 years. Peta is passionate about demystifying complex insurance products to help users make well educated decisions with confidence. Peta is part of Finder's insurance awards team and works alongside editorial and insights experts to bring users the best insurance products every year. See full bio

Co-written by

Gary Ross Hunter

Editor, Insurance

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

Gary Ross's expertise

Gary Ross has written 644 Finder guides across topics including:

• Health, home, life, car, pet and travel insurance
• Managing the cost of living