Home and Contents Insurance. Check the figure. Don't guess it.
Home and contents is really two covers travelling together: building cover for the structure itself, and contents cover for everything inside it.
Not sure this is the right cover for you? See who this is for - this is a personal policy, not a business one.
Most of the homes we insure belong to clients who already trust us with their business insurance and own a home worth insuring properly. If that is you, this is exactly how we work for it too.
Most home and contents policies get set once, at settlement or at a renewal years ago, and then left alone while building costs keep climbing. Nobody notices the gap between what you are insured for and what it would actually cost to rebuild your home today, until a fire, storm or flood forces the question.
We are not a call centre that sells you a number off a screen. We check what your home would actually cost to rebuild, place you on cover that pays out on genuine accidents rather than only on a list of named events, and tell you plainly what you are covered for and what you are not.
What it covers
Quick answerHome and contents insurance is really two policies that usually travel together: building cover for the structure itself, and contents cover for everything inside it. Building cover generally pays to repair or rebuild your home after an insured event like fire or storm, based on what it would actually cost to rebuild the structure, not on what your land is worth. Land doesn't burn down, so it's excluded from that figure, and confusing the two is one of the more common ways a sum insured ends up wrong from the start. Contents cover replaces your belongings, generally on a new-for-old basis, and most policies also include a personal liability section that responds if someone is injured at your home.
Flood is where it gets genuinely confusing, but not for the reason most people assume. Since 2012, "flood" itself 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 everything around it: whether your policy actually includes flood cover at all, on some it's excluded or optional, and how the other kinds of water in the same wet event (storm damage, rainwater run-off, storm surge, "action of the sea") are each treated, because those categories are not standardised. Two homes on the same street, insured with two different companies, can still get two different answers to "am I covered" from the exact same storm. Not because "flood" means something different on each policy, but because one includes it and the other doesn't, or because the water gets classified into a category one policy covers and the other excludes.
On the home cover we place, the first of those questions is already settled: all the broker home wordings we place include flood cover, including river flooding and flash flooding. There is no version of the home cover we place that leaves flood out.
High-value items are the other place people get caught out. On the home cover we place, jewellery, watches and similar valuables are automatically covered up to $10,000 per item without you having to list them individually or pay extra, well above the per-item defaults many policies carry unless you proactively specify and pay more. Contents are also covered anywhere in Australia while temporarily away from home, and for up to 100 days if you take them overseas. Above the automatic limit, on any policy, broker-placed or direct, the item still needs to be specified.
The biggest risk
Quick answerMany home sums insured fall behind actual rebuild cost without anyone noticing. Building costs have risen by around 30% over the three years to early 2025 (Insurance Council of Australia), and most home policies only apply a passive annual indexation, not a fresh valuation, so that adjustment struggles to keep up. Contents figures are often worse: plenty of people are still insuring their contents for the same number they chose ten or twenty years ago. The payout you would actually receive can fall well short of what rebuilding your home, or replacing everything in it, would really cost today.
If your home was destroyed tomorrow, would that payout get you all the way there, or just most of the way? A figure that was accurate in 2021 is very unlikely to be accurate now, and a premium that keeps rising every year tells you nothing about whether the sum insured underneath it is still right.
Here is the part almost nobody is told: if you use an insurer's own online calculator to estimate your rebuild cost, that is a guide, not advice, and the insurer is not responsible for the number it produces. In one published determination, a homeowner had insured their home for $495,000, but after a total loss the rebuild quotes that came in were around $150,000 higher. The insurer settled the claim 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. The responsibility for the number sits with you, unless someone genuinely qualified has actually looked at your specific home.
That is the conversation we have before you renew, not after a claim.
How we do it differently
Home and contents insurance is a simpler product than a commercial program, and we will not pretend otherwise. There is no full desktop building replacement valuation service behind this page the way there is for a commercial property.
What we do run, for every home client, every year, is a rebuild-cost calculator check on the building, so the sum insured keeps pace with real construction costs instead of drifting for a decade the way contents figures so often do. It is not a substitute for a full valuation, but it is a genuine, repeatable habit most people never get from a direct insurer, and it is exactly the kind of check the section above shows most people are missing.
The bigger structural difference is in the cover itself. Plenty of direct home policies only pay out if what happened to your home matches something on a list of named events, fire, storm, theft and so on, and even then that event carries its own get-outs on top of the policy's general exclusions. The broker wordings we place work differently: they cover you for anything sudden and accidental unless it is one of a specific set of exclusions, so you are not stuck arguing about whether your situation matches a list before the real conversation about your claim even starts.
To be fair to direct insurers, most of them do sell this broader accidental damage cover too, 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. The honest difference is not that direct insurers refuse to offer it. It is that the broker wordings we place start you there as the default, not as an upsell you have to know exists.
Your cover does not rely on a single insurer's wording for any of this, either. 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 forced out of your home temporarily, another might settle every claim on a straightforward new-for-old basis, another might carry a broader safety net if a declared disaster pushes rebuild costs up. None of that is a general fix for being underinsured. A safety net like that only switches on for a declared catastrophe, not because your own sum insured was wrong from the start, which is exactly why the annual rebuild-cost check above matters more than any safety net. We fit the wording to your situation instead of defaulting to whichever one a call centre happens to sell.
What we do bring, on top of all of that, is the same habit: we ask what you actually own, what you would genuinely be devastated to lose, whether your home has been renovated or extended since the policy started, and whether "flood" on your specific 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.
If you are already one of our commercial clients, this is simply the same broker doing the same job for the other side of your life.
Who needs this
This page is for owners of homes worth insuring properly, most often clients who already trust us with their business insurance and have never thought to ask us about their home.
It matters most if your circumstances have changed since the policy started: you have renovated or extended, you have bought art, tools or jewellery worth insuring individually, your contents figure hasn't been looked at in years, or you simply cannot remember the last time anyone checked the sum insured against what your home would actually cost to rebuild today.
Common mistakes
- Assuming flood is automatically included. It is one of the most common assumptions in home insurance, and in the direct market one of the most expensive to get wrong: "flood" has one standard legal definition, but not every policy includes flood cover, and storm and rainwater run-off are separate, non-standardised categories each insurer treats its own way. It is a trap for people buying direct, not for our clients: all the broker home wordings we place include flood cover, including river flooding and flash flooding, with no option to remove it.
- Leaving high-value items off the specified list. A general contents sum insured is not the same as cover for the one piece of jewellery or the one set of tools you would actually be gutted to lose.
- Treating a rebuild-cost calculator as advice. It is a starting estimate, not a professional's opinion on your specific home, and the responsibility for the final number is yours unless someone has actually looked at the detail (see the underinsurance section above).
Reviewed by the people we insure.
When it comes to insurance, I always end up feeling frustrated. Home insurance in particular gives me a real headache—what type do I need? Owner-occupied, investment, contents… should I have contents for both or just one? Technology makes it easy to click through everything on your phone, but when you actually need a real person to guide you, there’s no one there. I recently realised I was insured for the wrong things—or not covered at all. So I called Tracey Friedland, whom I’ve worked with for a long time for business insurance and renewals. I asked, a bit humbled, “Do you only help with business insurance, or can you help with personal insurance too?” Tracey’s warm and confident reply was, “Of course, we can help!” What a relief. Within half a day and just a couple of phone calls, she had everything sorted—building insurance, contents, landlord cover—accurate, complete, and finally done properly. All my concerns were gone. What else can I say about Tracey Friedland? An absolutely amazing lady.
I know it is strange to say this about an insurance company but what a pleasure CIB is to deal with. Sheryll Todd is extremely professional and a knows what she is in about. I use Sheryll for my business and private insurance and always found her to be excellent. Whether it be a new policy or a claim her attitude is the same.....professional. One of the bet parts is that you are kept informed with the progress at all times and you don't have to keep on ringing them to find out what is going on. Good on you Sheryll.
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Home & Contents Insurance: your questions answered
Does home insurance automatically include flood cover?
What is the difference between building insurance and contents insurance?
Do I need to list high-value items separately?
What does new-for-old mean on a contents policy?
Why would my home be underinsured if my premium keeps going up every year?
Related cover and reading
The information on this page is general in nature and does not take into account your objectives, financial situation or needs. Before acting on it, consider whether it is appropriate for your circumstances. Where the information relates to a particular insurance product, consider the relevant Product Disclosure Statement before making a decision.
Last reviewed: 29/07/2026
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