It can be tricky to know whether you’re choosing the right home insurance policy for your circumstances, especially when you want to make sure you’re not underinsured. Before you start looking into home insurance quotes, there are a few factors you may like to consider when choosing your policy. Let’s take a look at the following factors to help make the decisions on home insurance policies less daunting.
Protecting your home
Perhaps one of the first factors to decide on when choosing your home insurance policy is the extent to which you may want to cover your home in the event your home is damaged or destroyed. Many insurance companies offer cover up to the sum insured, which is a calculation of how much it would cost to rebuild your home if it was completely destroyed1. However, in the case of some insurance companies, you may have the option to choose total replacement cover, meaning you’re generally insured for the cost of repairing your home to its current standard1. You may not always have the chance to choose between these two options – it all depends on your insurance provider and what they offer so it pays to carefully read the Product Disclosure Statement.
Regardless of which option you choose or are offered, the most important thing is that you’re not underestimating the cost of rebuilding your home. Most insurance companies have online calculators you can use to approximate the rebuild cost of your home1. While you do not necessarily have to stick to this suggestion, it’s worth taking into consideration and using as a guide to help prevent the risk of underinsuring.
Building and contents insurance
When it comes to insuring your home, it’s important to keep in mind that unless you have contents insurance, your personal belongings generally won’t be covered in your building insurance (or home insurance) policy4. Having contents insurance may be worth considering, as just like how you never know when something could happen to your house, you never know when your personal belongings could be damaged2.
If you’re concerned about how to purchase contents insurance that adequately covers all of your personal items, you may like to consider taking an inventory of the contents in each room of your house3. It’s also a good idea to take note of any contents you could have stored outside of your house as well, such as in a shed or on a patio or deck. However you choose to take stock of your personal belongings, ensuring this inventory stays up-to-date can help you maintain an adequate level of cover under a contents insurance policy3.
When considering different contents insurance policies, you may find some insurance companies choose to cover the replacement value of your items, meaning this helps cover the value of your belongings if you had to replace them with brand new ones4. Alternatively, other insurance companies may cover the value of your lost or damaged belongings for what they were insured for at the time of loss or damage4. It pays to check your insurance policy’s Product Disclosure Statement closely to properly understand the extent to which your personal belongings are covered.
What’s included and excluded in a home insurance policy?
As you’ve probably already guessed, home insurance policies and the level of cover offered differs depending on the insurance company and the level of cover you choose.
You may wish to consider different types of home insurance policies to check if cover for the following types of events is included or excluded: flood, fire, storm, break-ins/ theft, vandalism, and accidental damage1. Depending on your insurer, some or all of these events could be covered in a policy. It’s worth comparing home insurance options to check which types of events are included and which you may be able to purchase as additional extras1.
If you are opting for a home and contents insurance policy, make sure you also check the inclusions and exclusions that apply to coverage of your contents. In some cases, there may be set limits for how much you can claim per specific item2. Understanding these limitations when making a home insurance comparison can help when deciding on the best policy for your situation.
Just like how each policy will differ depending on the insurance company, the types of additional extras on offer can also change. While it’s not compulsory to add any of the additional extras available, you may consider adding additional extras to your policy that suit your situation1.
Home insurance excess cover
The last thing you’ll encounter when comparing home insurance quotes is how adding more or less excess affects the overall premium you pay. Excess is generally something you can change to suit your needs, but there are a few factors to keep in mind when deciding how much excess to include1.
It’s important to first of all understand what excess is and how it works. In short terms, when you submit an insurance claim and it is accepted, the excess is the amount of money you would typically pay towards fixing the damage before your insurance company will help cover the cost in line with your policy1. However, this isn’t always the case and there can be certain situations where your insurance company may not pay any money towards the damage. For example, this most commonly happens when your claim is less than the amount of excess you have selected1. If you choose a lower excess, your premium is often higher, whereas when you choose a higher excess, this generally lowers the cost of your premium1.
Choosing home insurance
While there may be a lot of factors to consider when choosing your home insurance policy, they can all be important in helping you select the right policy for your circumstances. The best way to help avoid being underinsured is to take the time to carefully evaluate and compare home insurance policies until you’re content that your home is sufficiently protected.
At Queensland Country Bank, we can assist you in finding the right home insurance policy provided by CGU Insurance.
Queensland Country Bank Limited ABN 77 087 651 027 AFS Licence No. 244533 acts under its own Australian Financial Services Licence and under an agreement with the insurer, Insurance Australia Limited ABN 11 000 016 722 AFS Licence no. 227681 trading as CGU Insurance. CGU Home and Contents Insurance is issued by CGU. You can get a Product Disclosure Statement (PDS) for any of these products from any office of Queensland Country Bank. You should consider the PDS in deciding whether to buy or hold the relevant products.
General Advice Warning: This information is intended to be general in nature and is not personal financial advice. It does not take into account your objectives, financial situation or needs. Before acting on any information in this article, you should consider the appropriateness of the information provided. In particular, you should seek independent financial advice.
Sources
1Moneysmart, 2023, Choosing home insurance, https://moneysmart.gov.au/home-insurance/choosing-home-insurance
2Daniel Graham & Uta Mihm, 2023, How to find the right home and contents insurance policy, Choice, https://www.choice.com.au/money/insurance/home-and-contents/buying-guides/home-and-contents-insurance
3CGU Insurance, 2017, Don’t be left in the lurch – How to minimise underinsurance, https://www.cgu.com.au/blog/dont-be-left-lurch-minimise-underinsurance
4MoneySmart, 2023, Contents insurance, https://moneysmart.gov.au/home-insurance/contents-insurance