Home and contents insurance review

Hi @Arbee1 And welcome to the community.
You have me thinking about our 150year old home and it’s latest policy renewal. Not with Youi.

The definitions in the T&Cs are always a good place to look, irrespective of what you may get verbally. I had recent dealings with two different household insurers and looked at a third. RACQ and Suncorp were two of those. The response over the phone changed when I asked for written confirmation, and I was simply referred to the PDS and Policy documentation.

Perhaps putting your specific questions to the insurer or prospective insurer in writing/email and asking for specific written responses is one way to seek reassurance.

Choice also has a number of guides on the main web site. They may be able to clarify some points too?

It sounds like Youi are avoiding committing to any extra costs of upgrading a repair to be compliant with the latest building standards. They may pay only for a portion of a repair based on like for like. Although for older houses that may be even more expensive. In which instance the policy may need to best reflect the non standard value and the property to be more expensive to insure.

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Could you perhaps ask members of this forum to get quotes for you eg Consumer Defenders. You would only need to supply the details for the quoting (the insurers you want contacted and the items etc you want quoted for) to each participant and let the members do the “walking”. When they get the quotes they just PM a contact person in this site and the job is less intensive for CHOICE Staff. I am sure it would just require someone asking people here for help in the task and setting up the agreements and speadsheets needed.

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When I conatcted multiple insurers for quotes prior to renewing our house & contents insurance earlier this year, they all wanted the address of the property as part of the online input.

So it would need to use similar properties in similarareas to be able to attempt to get realistically comparable quotes.

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Easy enough to do to provide the same “address” to get comparisons based on same property details, the same would go for contents. I think to keep comparisons fair CHOICE would have a “standard” property on which they get a quote from each insurer.

They would get all brick, timber, steel frame, timber frame etc and then give each member getting a quote the same build of property eg brick for one, stell framed and so on…this is why it would be so labour intensive currently for CHOICE with limited staff numbers to contact so many businesses.

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We’ve rated these policies as the three worst for home insurance:

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This link in the article does not work.

“Wondering why it’s so exxy? Daniel explains it in this article about weathering a home insurance storm in northern Australia.”

Regardless, it is a joke that Northern Australia gets a raw deal after all the disasters in the South starting with the bushfires.

As per my post under another topic, several companies I contacted earlier this year refuse to provide insurance in FNQ.

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Yep that link just takes you back to the article the link is in…round and round you go :laughing:

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Choice article “Home insurance cover for bushfires”, updated in in January 2020, noted that one major insurer excludes damage caused by “heat, ash, soot and smoke when your home or contents have not caught on fire unless it is caused by a burning building within 10 metres of the insured address”.
Upon enquiring recently with my own insurer and several others large companies, whilst renewing my policy I found that sadly this appears to be the general case rather than the exception. Unfortunately this exclusion is not as clearly identified by all companies.
So if you happen to go out, accidentally leaving a window open, and then a bushfire starts nearby, resulting in smoke and soot damage to curtains, carpets, furnishings, paintwork etc , you are not covered unless your house has actually caught fire. So this is damage, which was caused by a bushfire, which is not ‘fire damage’.

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Hi & welcome to the forum @janyneG. I have moved your post to this existing thread relating to Choice’s home and contents insurance review.

Thanks for the heads up. A cynic would probably point out that the lack of clarity in the Ts&Cs is more the rule than the exception.

This reminds me of the imbroglio relating to the definition of flood damage. The insurance companies evaded paying claims by ‘determining’ that the water damage was not from the flood, but rather from precipitation, or from storm, or from flowing water… etc.

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I live in Nth Qld & have found it very difficult to find insurance companies who will insure in Nth Qld without charging an arm & a leg! I am currently with Vero who have been quite good however I have just seen an ad for Sure Insurance who claim they specialize in insuring in the North. I am wondering if anyone has had any experience with this firm. I got an online quote & it is around 1/2 the price I am currently paying. Any advice would be appreciated.

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We have just renewed our Home & Contents Insurance with Suncorp after “negioating” a much better deal on the renewal notice they sent to us last month.

When I received it, I got an online quote from Sure Insurance which was even higher than Suncorp’s original try.

The previous year, I got online quotes from all the usual suspects except the clowns who won’t insure FNQ and Sure was again higher than Suncorp, and the only ones lower were those who you would not want to rely on when a disaster happens.

If you wish to post your suburb, the sums insured, and the premiums offered by the two insurers, I may be able to comment further.

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Hi @Anne2, I have moved your post to an existing thread about home and contents insurance. There may be posts in this thread which you may also find useful.

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Thank you

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Postcode is 4818, Bushland Beach. House insured for $300,000 & contents for $100,000. I currently pay $304.00 per mth with Vero & quote from Sure was around $190 per mth with an excess of $500

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I just got an online quote from Suncorp for Bushland Beach by using an address of 26 Seabrook Circuit, Bushland Beach which is listed for sale for $359,000, and using a sum of $100,000 for the Contents Insurance.

Suncorp made the minimum value for the building as $503,619 and the premium quoted was $2,823.84 per annum.

Less than what you are paying Vero but more than Sure.

Could you really get your residence rebuilt for a mere $300,000, especially near the ocean?

The reviews for Sure on Trustpilot are pretty good.

https://au.trustpilot.com/review/sureapp.com

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We’ve previously lived in Townsville and other parts of North Qld. We had no problems obtaining insurance from Suncorp or RACQ. No comment re value in your exact location. We were not in a flood evacuation zone. We did have a modern cyclone rated property on a coastal elevated site (high wind rating). Similar to the elevated areas of Bushland Beach.

As @Fred123 commented it’s also important to have a reliable estimate of the full replacement cost of your property. Typically up to 50% more than a new build on the day.
One tool.

Note: We currently insure with Suncorp but for a property with a very different risk profile.
We had one claim through RACQ Insurance for storm/cyclone damage when living in Townsville. It was managed very effectively.

Note:
For those looking to make the move to the tropics. Each coastal council has flood maps and Storm Tide (cyclone flood risk) evacuation maps.
EG
http://a0587a5da3a27b5ddddd-9496a57875d1912f0d3f98cf7a72a4ce.r82.cf2.rackcdn.com/Evacuation_Framework_Webmaps_BUSHLAND%20BEACH.pdf

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Most monthly premiums are about 5-15% more each year than paying a premium annually. If you can, it makes financial sense to pay annually if you have money saved. If you do have saved monies, for next year’s premium save the quoted monthly rate each month and this should hopefully cover any premium rises for the next premium.

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The suburb name is a little misleading. It is only a small suburb of around 2000 people. There is a small sandy beach area but most of the coastline is mangroves etc. Our house is built at the base of a small hill which is around 2 km from the beach & not in any storm surge area. We built just over 6 years ago & it cost $200,000 to build then. I have had a builder suggest that $300,000 would cover demolition & rebuild so that’s what I’m going on.

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Thanks for your insight. I’ve previously a bad experience with RACQ for car insurance so am reluctant to try them again. However, I will look into both RACQ & Suncorp - they both pop up every time I do any research.

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For our current needs we moved from RACQ to Suncorp, as even with discounts there was a reasonable saving.

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