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.
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Weāve 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 itās 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 yearās 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 thatās what Iām going on.
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Thanks for your insight. Iāve 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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@Anne2 maybe try the governmentās comparison website for home insurance in North Queensland and let us know what you think. https://nqhomeinsurance.gov.au/
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It shows Basic cover with Suncorp for a building in Mt Sheridan insured for $550,000 with a $400 excess at a cost for a Medium Premium of $4,136 per annum and for contents of $73,000 with $400 excess at a cost for a Medium Premium of $885 per annum.
We just renewed our insurance with Suncorp last week with the building insured for $600,200 with a $5,000 excess for $1,206.70 and contents of $73,000 with an excess of $600 for $447.42.
āTell āem theyāre dreamināā
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Thanks - Iāll have a look.
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Not a great tool. I looked at it using our previous Townsville address. Itās a flawed tool. It says in the commentary that quotes can vary widely due to variations within the suburb. The averages for premiums are for the location and only provide a statistical range of results. There is no data related to the differences in demographics or house styles for each insurer. The indicative lower end ranges for premiums were 50-100% greater than we were paying.
We lived in a highly diverse suburb. Bushland Beach previously discussed has a diversity of houses in respect of construction methods, some exposed to tidal/cyclone flood surge, and others exposed to high wind loading due to elevation and multi-story construction on a hill.
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I started looking at a quote from Suncorp & as with a lot of other insurers, they ask for the build āqualityā. Well ours is neither basic nor as āqualityā as they deem - itās probably in between, so it becomes confusing when choosing. The house is 6 1/2 years old with 4 bedrooms & a theatre room & around 207 sq m. Iām getting to a point where I canāt be bothered trying to change!
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Important is understanding what the current policy or other quotes are based on. They need to have similar assumptions.
Are you trying to use the Suncorp online tool for a quote? It uses the details you or I might input to estimate the value of the policy.
Iāve previously obtained new quotes by phoning a consultant at each insurer, after which they emailed the proposal for review and acceptance or not. What ever the differences, the insured sum needs to be the same for all quotes. They can adjust or there is an option at the end of the Suncorp online tool that allows you to nominate a higher sum or lower value (there is a tolerance limit). There are three finish standards. Try the middle one and see how it goes. Basic is really laminated bench tops, framed glass showers and plain aluminium windows with cheap carpet or vinyl floor covering. In Townsville it might even be painted concrete blocks with no render and 2.4m ceilings, slab on ground.
P.S.
Iād be expecting for your house build age and details an insured value home only of around $500k to be closer to the mark. W41 or possibly W51 cyclone wind rating depending on the slope and hill. Note in 2015 the off the plan 3 bedroom homes with a good build quality at Burdel were around the $1500+ per sq m. This puts your house the at around $310k to build in 2015. The houses with the higher spec granite kitchens and timber floors and wall to ceiling tiled bathrooms were up around $1750-$2000/sqm. All big ceilings 2.65m or raked. Assume you can relate your home to these for finish?
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Thanks for your detailed reply. Yes, I was looking at the online tool & I did actually nominate $500,000 but it still threw up over $600,000 when I chose the middle standard of finish. I might preserve & try again. I appreciate the time you have given to advise me.
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The $300k guestimate would be under normal, non-disaster, conditions. Generally after a significant natural disaster where there is widespread damage to many buildings, construction costs can be significantly more as often trades are in short supply and everyone wants the work completed yesterday. For a house fire where only one building is affected, there isnāt generally increase in construction costs across the sector.
Insurance companies pay for costs at the time of damage and a $300k guestimate during normal times could be inadequate in times of a natural disaster. There could be a loading needed to be applied at such time.
Other costs also need to be considered is damage to other property improvements such as fences, sheds, tanks, pool etc. And rent for when your property in uninhabitableā¦sometimes a year or more rent may be needed if repair/replacement works are not prioritised by the insurer or government body set up to co-ordinate the recovery.
While building replacement cost calculators might not be overly accurate for all dwellings, they provide a guide for replacement costs. I would be moving somewhat towards the calculator figures rather than a potentially low guestimate figure based on non-disaster conditionsā¦I would also be looking at cover that provides a 25%+ additional cover over replacement cost to attempt to ensure there is adequate payout if works occur when building costs are higher than usual.
If you believe your house is resilent to anything nature can throw at it/natural disasters, then you could take a risk with something around the lower figure.
At the end of the day you possibly donāt want to be underinsured and left out of pocket if a full replacement is required, nor overinsured and paying for something you donāt need.
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Thanks. I am in the process of re-insuring. I am currently speaking with someone at Suncorp to help me through it. Living in Nth Qld brings some unwanted financial burdens. One thing that irritates me is that the southern areas get more severe storms, hail etc than we get cyclones up here but yet it appears we carry a bigger financial burden when it comes to insurance which hardly seems fair. I am fully aware of the disaster situation here having gone through Cyclone Althea in 1971 & losing my father in that cyclone. No matter how much I buck & scream I still have to fork out big money to insure my property.
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From what I understand there are a number of reasons why tropical coastal areas the risks are greaterā¦
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In severe cyclones the damage can be widespread and catastrophic resulting in most buildings suffering major damage. Buildings in the path of the cyclone which can be scores of kilometres wide suffer damage and the probably of damage and a high insurance claim are high. The probably of an area having a cyclone is also high, so a building is likely to be subject to a cyclone relatively regularly.
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Storms or what is often known as supercells have a limited width track and buildings in its path can have no damage major damage, with major damage being infrequent due to the nature of the storm. The probably of a building being hit by a supercell is also low due to the width of their track and frequency at a particular location.
The other factor is any rebuild or major damage repair in a cyclone area needs to be done to meet current building ratings as well. These change regularly from lessons learnt from the previous major cyclone event. Buildings arenāt required to be replaced or repaired to meet a supercell rating due to the low likelihood of another supercell occurring in the futureā¦one would be very unlucky to experience two supercells at the same location over their lifetime.
The financial risk for an insurer for a cyclone, on a regional policy by policy basis, is significantly greater than for supercell, thus insurance companies factor in these risks through higher premiums.
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The risk assessment is on the cost of damage likely to be done not just on the frequency of storms. Cyclone damage even once a decade is a bigger risk than thunderstorms a dozen times a year. There are some places like Darwin that get both.
There is another consideration. In the tropics building have to be built to a higher standard of wind load which costs more to repair. So the payout for rebuilding is more and that has to be covered by premiums.
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Cyclones while quite damaging are rare on an individual city basis, they may not be rare events overall but often find landfall outside of major centres or do not make landfall. Flooding from rainfall or some amount of combined rainfall and storm surge might be a bigger issue, but then Brisbane and SE Qld have in my opinion had much more damaging issues over the years and on a more regular basis. I think NQ is a much easier target to hit for premium increases than the more densely populated Sth area which then has more political push to make their cries of unfair increases heard.
Thunderstorms with high damaging winds and hail occur almost every year, even multiple times in the year, in the SE Qld Corner. Why arenāt the premiums higher here? Flooding is another common issue. As I stated the rates here are modified by the outcry risk in my opinion not the risk factor of occurence.
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You have nailed it.
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