Written by William Paull
Co-Founder & Account Director
On this page
Most people find out how good their home insurance is at the worst possible moment: after the fire, after the storm, after the ring goes down the drain. Everything before that is a premium and a document nobody reads. I've spent my career on the other side of that moment, and the hardest conversations I have are with people who did nothing wrong except buy a policy they were never taught how to read.
So let me teach you how the market actually works. Not to sell you anything in the next five minutes, but because almost no one explains this, and it changes how you'd choose.
home insurance in Australia is sold at three levels - budget policies covering a fixed list of events, brand-name policies built on the same listed-events idea with better limits, and comprehensive "all-risks" cover that pays for anything sudden and accidental unless it's specifically excluded. That one structural difference is, more often than anything else on the policy, the difference between a paid claim and a declined one - and most people are on a narrower tier than they assume. The rest of this piece unpacks it.
There isn't one home insurance market. There are three.
The budget end. Cheap, fast, bought online in ten minutes. These policies cover a fixed list of events, they carry a lot of limits you won't notice until you claim, and some of them make you add flood or your valuables back on as paid extras. There's nothing dishonest about them. They are exactly what they say they are: the lowest price for the narrowest promise. The catch is that the narrowness is invisible until the day you need it.
The big brand-name insurers. A step up. Better limits, a bit more certainty, the names you see on the football jerseys. Better than budget, and priced like it, but most of them are still built on the same underlying idea: they pay if what happened to your home is on their list.
The comprehensive end. This is the level of cover most people assume they already have, and usually don't. Instead of a list of events, the policy starts from a simple question: did something sudden and accidental happen to your home? If yes, you're covered, unless it's one of a specific set of exclusions. This is where we start every client by default, and it's where I've always placed my own family's cover.
And to be fair to the direct insurers: most of them will sell you a version of this broader cover too, if you know it exists, ask for it, and pay extra for it. The catch is that nobody starts you there. The online quote path defaults you to the narrow end, and most people never find out the broader version existed.
The one difference that decides most claims
A listed-events policy pays only if the cause of your loss matches a name on its list: fire, storm, theft, and so on. If the cause isn't on the list, it doesn't matter how genuine or how expensive the damage is. There's no cover.
An all-risks policy removes that first hurdle entirely. It doesn't ask "is this on the list?" It asks "was this a sudden accident?" and goes from there.
Here's what that means in your living room. Your teenager puts a foot through the ceiling looking for something in the roof. That's not a storm, it's not a fire, it's not theft. On a listed-events policy it's not on the list, so unless you specifically added accidental-damage cover as a paid extra - and most people haven't - you pay for the repair yourself. On an all-risks policy, it's a sudden accident, so it's a claim. Same house, same accident, completely different answer, and the only thing that changed was which structure you happened to buy years ago.
The things you can't see until you claim
Beyond the structure, this is where good cover and cheap cover quietly separate:
- Your valuables have a limit you probably don't know. On a lot of policies, an unspecified ring or watch is covered for only a thousand or two, sometimes only while it's sitting in the house. If your engagement ring is worth more than that, the gap is yours. Better cover carries far higher automatic limits and follows your things when they leave home, though even then there's a time limit when you travel overseas, so it pays to ask exactly how far your cover reaches.
- The amount you're insured for - your "sum insured" - is almost certainly out of date. Building costs have climbed hard in the last few years. Most policies only nudge the figure up a little each year, automatically, which never keeps pace with what it would actually cost to rebuild today. Contents are worse: most people are still insured for the number they picked ten or twenty years ago. A rising premium tells you nothing about whether the number underneath it is still right.
- Two neighbours, same storm, different answers. "Flood" itself has had one standard legal definition in Australia for over a decade. But whether your policy actually includes flood cover, and how it treats the other kinds of water in the same wet event - rainwater run-off, storm surge, water from next door - still varies policy to policy. Two houses on the same street can lodge the same claim after the same storm and get opposite answers. Not because anyone was cheated: because the wordings were never the same to begin with.
- There's fine print about leaving the house empty. Most policies change the deal once a home sits unoccupied for a stretch, commonly around 60 days: an extra excess, or cover falling away. It's not a trap, but it is real, and if you travel for a season you need to tell your insurer before you go so your cover holds.
None of this is hidden in a dishonest way. It's just written in a document you were never going to read, in language you were never taught - and no one on a direct sales line is allowed to advise you on whether any of it actually suits your situation. That's not a criticism of the people on the phone; it's how the direct channel is built.
What a broker is actually for
Two things, and I want to be precise about both because the industry oversells them.
The first is the cover itself. A broker's job is to put you on the right tier by default, the comprehensive one, without you having to know it exists or hunt for the tick box. The exact same insurers often sell the narrow version and the broad version; the difference is that we start you at the broad end and only step back if your situation genuinely doesn't need it.
The second is what happens at claim time. When something goes wrong, a direct customer reads their policy for the first time, works out for themselves whether they're covered, and negotiates their own settlement. Our clients don't do that alone. We lodge it, we frame it against the actual wording, we handle the back-and-forth, and we push for the best outcome your policy allows. I won't tell you we can force an insurer to pay a claim they're entitled to decline, because no one honest can. What I'll tell you is that you're not on your own, and it shows when it matters most.
The honest part
I'm not going to tell you we're the cheapest. We're not, and if the lowest price is the only thing that matters to you, a budget policy will beat us on premium every time.
What I'll tell you is this: knowing what I know, I would never insure my own family's home with a cheap direct-to-consumer policy. Not because those companies are dishonest, but because I've watched too many people discover, at the worst moment, exactly how narrow "cheap" turned out to be. I'd rather pay a fair price for cover that actually answers when I call it, and have someone in my corner if the day ever comes.
The one question this page can't answer
Everything I've just told you is general information. That's not a legal nicety - it's the plain truth: I haven't seen your home, your contents, your renovation or your ring, so nothing on this page can tell you whether your cover is right. And as I said above, the person on a direct insurer's sales line generally can't tell you either. Those channels are built to give general information only.
A licensed insurance broker is the exception. We can look at your actual situation - the house, the valuables, the six weeks a year you're away - give you personal advice and a recommendation on that basis, and be accountable for it. That's not a slogan. It's the regulatory difference between a broker and every other way this product is sold, and it's the entire reason we exist.
This is mostly something we do for clients who already trust us with their business cover, but if you want a second opinion on your home policy, send it through. So send us the policy you're on. We'll read it properly, compare it with what the comprehensive end of the market would give you, and tell you plainly: keep it, change it, or fix the gaps. Sometimes the honest answer is that what you've got is fine - and you'll get that answer too. But you'll want to know before the claim, not after.
Quick answers
What's the difference between "listed events" and "accidental damage" (all-risks) home insurance?
A listed-events policy pays only if the cause of your loss matches a named event on its list - fire, storm, theft and so on. An all-risks policy asks a different question: was the damage sudden and accidental? If yes, it's covered unless a specific exclusion applies. Same house, same accident, often the opposite claims outcome - the structure decides.
Is cheap home insurance worth it?
It's exactly what it says it is: the lowest price for the narrowest promise. That can be a fair deal if you know precisely which gaps you're carrying and can afford to wear them yourself. The problem is that most people only find out where the narrowness is on the day they claim.
Why can two neighbours claim on the same storm and get different answers?
Because their policy wordings were never the same. Identical damage can be covered under one wording and declined under another.
What does an insurance broker actually do for home insurance?
Two things. Before the claim: start you on the comprehensive tier by default and give you personal advice on whether it suits your situation - something a direct sales line generally can't do. At claim time: lodge it, frame it against the actual wording, and push for the best outcome your policy allows. No honest broker can promise to force an insurer to pay a claim it's entitled to decline - but you're not facing it alone.
This is general information about how home and contents insurance works, not personal advice about your situation. Whether a particular policy suits you depends on your own circumstances, needs and the specific product's terms, which you should consider before deciding.