Is your home insurer ripping you off?
Study shows one insurer's quote was six times more expensive than another - for the same house.
Home insurance helps us feel safe. If something happens to the roof over our heads, it'll cover the cost. But is that sense of security coming at too high a price?
For some Aussies, it's likely the answer will be yes. That's because, despite a competitive market, Australia's insurers are quoting vastly different prices to cover the same home.
The findings come from NSW government's Emergency Services Levy Insurance Monitor, which collected quotes from 13 different insurers across 11 identical properties, in different locations.
Each insurer was given the specifications for the properties and asked to provide quotes. The research unveiled some major discrepancies when it came to price.
In one case, NRMA gave a quote of $6,758 for a 3-bedroom house in Hinton. In contrast, the second most expensive quote came from CGU for $3,725 and the cheapest quote was given by Westpac, for just $1,040.
In that hypothetical, a homeowner could easily have been out of pocket by more than $5,000 if they failed to compare home insurance providers before buying a policy.
That case is one of the more extreme examples but, across all 11 properties, there was a discrepancy of at least $500 between the least and most expensive policy.
| Cheapest policy | Cheapest policy | Average price | Most expensive policy |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bradbury | $788 | $1,074 | $1,516 |
| Byron Bay | $884 | $1,472 | $2,091 |
| Canowindra | $841 | $1,339 | $2,030 |
| Concord | $844 | $1,072 | $1,404 |
| East Gosford | $1,013 | $1,360 | $1,933 |
| Hinton | $1,040 | $2,736 | $6,758 |
| Hornsby | $689 | $1,019 | $1,558 |
| Medlow Bath | $1,014 | $1,364 | $2,400 |
| Randwick | $943 | $1,180 | $1,540 |
| Riverview | $813 | $1,186 | $1,711 |
| Wollongong | $901 | $1,205 | $1,494 |
The opportunity to save money was also evident in Finder research, which gathered 222 home insurance quotes across all seven Australian states.
According to that cost research, Aussies could save up to $1,123 a year, just by comparing the cost of home insurance.
Compare home insurance
If you think you're paying too much for home insurance, you could be right. Use the table below to compare policies, and request a quote for more information. Remember, it pays to shop around, so try requesting quotes from multiple insurers.
