Home and Contents Insurance. Check the figure. Don't guess it.

Since 2012, "flood" has had one standard legal definition across Australian home policies: water escaping the normal confines of a river, creek, lake, dam or similar (Insurance Contracts Regulations; see the Insurance Council of Australia's flood explainer). What is not standard is whether a policy includes flood at all; on some it is excluded or optional. Nor is there a standard for how each policy treats storm damage, rainwater run-off, storm surge and "action of the sea".

On the home cover we place, the first question is already settled: all the broker home wordings we place include flood cover, including river flooding and flash flooding. To see why two neighbours can get two different answers from the same storm, read how home insurance really works.

On five of the six wordings we place, your jewellery, watches and similar valuables are automatically covered up to $10,000 per item, with no listing and no extra premium. The sixth caps jewellery at $5,000 a piece. On most of our wordings, your contents are also covered anywhere in Australia while temporarily away from home, and for up to 100 days overseas (longer on at least one wording we hold). Two wordings cover contents only at the home address unless you add an option first. On one, even with the option, cover never extends beyond Australia and New Zealand. On the other, contents go overseas only with a portable contents option, which has its own limits. Check which one you are on before you travel. Above the automatic limit, on any policy, broker-placed or direct, the item still needs to be specified.

A figure that was accurate in 2021 is very unlikely to be accurate now. A rising premium tells you nothing about whether the sum insured underneath it is still right.

An insurer's online rebuild calculator is a guide, not advice. The insurer is not responsible for the number it produces. In one published determination from December 2024, a homeowner had insured their home for $495,000. After a total loss, the rebuild quotes came in around $150,000 higher. The insurer settled at the sum insured plus additional benefits, and the Australian Financial Complaints Authority held there was no requirement for the insurer to have adjusted that figure over the years the policy was held, even as premiums rose. Unless someone qualified has looked at your specific home, the responsibility for the number sits with you.

That is the conversation we have before you renew, not after a claim.

For every home client, every year, we run a rebuild-cost calculator check on the building, so your sum insured keeps pace with real construction costs. It is not a substitute for a full valuation. It is a repeatable habit most people never get from a direct insurer.

Most of the broker wordings we place do not limit you to a list of named events. They cover you for anything sudden and accidental unless it is one of a specific set of exclusions. Two of the six wordings we place are the exception: they list specific named events instead, with accidental damage as an optional extra. As a brokerage we only offer the accidental damage option to our clients. You can see how the two structures differ at claim time in how home insurance really works.

Most direct insurers sell accidental damage cover too, but as an optional extra you have to know to ask for and pay more for. It is not what gets pre-selected in an online quote. On most of the broker wordings we place, you start there by default.

We place home and contents cover across more than one strong wording on our panel, because they are not identical. One might give you a bigger buffer if you are temporarily forced out of your home. Another might settle every claim on a simple new-for-old basis. Another might carry a broader safety net if a declared disaster pushes rebuild costs up.

On two of the six wordings we place, that safety net also pays out if you used a named calculator correctly and still came up short. But no safety net fixes a sum insured that was wrong from the start. That is why the annual rebuild-cost check matters more. We fit the wording to your situation instead of defaulting to whichever one a call centre happens to sell.

We also ask what you own and what you would be devastated to lose. We ask whether your home has been renovated or extended since the policy started, and whether "flood" on your policy means what you think it means. A comparison site will sell you a policy that matches the boxes you ticked. It will not tell you which boxes you forgot to tick.

This matters most if your circumstances have changed since the policy started. Perhaps you have renovated or extended, or bought art, tools or jewellery worth insuring individually. Perhaps you have left your contents figure alone for years, or cannot remember the last time anyone checked your sum insured against what your home would cost to rebuild today.

1. Assuming flood is automatically included. In the direct market, not every policy includes flood cover. Each insurer also treats storm and rainwater run-off its own way.
2. Leaving high-value items off the specified list. A general contents sum insured is not cover for the one piece you would be gutted to lose.
3. Treating a rebuild-cost calculator as advice. It is a starting estimate, not a professional's opinion on your specific home (see the December 2024 case above).