What’s covered by Comprehensive Car Insurance?
Cost of repairing or replacing your own vehicle due to a motor vehicle accident including a collision or crash, malicious acts, theft, attempted theft, fire, storm, hail, and floods.
If your new car is written off within two years or 40,000km (Gold Car Insurance policy) of the original registration (whichever comes first), we’ll replace it with a brand-new one.
You are covered for up to $20 million of legal liability cover for any accidental damage your car causes to someone else’s car and property.
If we accept your claim for a no fault accident or theft of your car, you'll be eligible for a hire car.
We will pay the cost of recovery, towing, and storing your car at the closest repairer or recommended storage facility if your car is stolen or unsafe to drive following an accident.
We will pay up to $500 for loss or damage to your personal items that were in the car at the time of a collision, theft or forced entry into the car (for example, a carjacking).
If your car is damaged, we will pay to transport the driver and passengers to where the car is normally kept. If there isn't any transport available, we will pay for the cost of temporary accommodation for $200 per day and up to $1,000 in total.
We will pay up to $500 for loss or damage to child seats or capsules that were in your car at the time of a collision, theft or forced entry into the car.
Terms, conditions, limits and exclusions apply. For full details, please read the Product Disclosure Statement.
Upgrade Your Comprehensive Car Insurance Cover
For an additional premium, you can customise your Comprehensive Car Insurance cover by adding one or more of these optional benefits to your policy.
If we accept your at fault claim, we'll arrange a hire car for you to use for up to 14 days.
Reduce your excess for damage to your vehicle’s window glass, including its windscreen and rear and side windows, to just $40.
If you have a claim with us, you can nominate your preferred repairer.
How do I add an optional benefit to my policy?
You can add one or more of these benefits when you get a quote and buy a policy or — if you've already bought one — by contacting us or logging into your online account and editing your policy.
Note that you can reduce your window-glass excess only within 21 days of buying your policy, renewing it, or transferring it to a replacement vehicle.
No Claim Discounts for Comprehensive Car Insurance
A No Claim Discount (NCD) (also known as a no claim bonus) increases each year you don't make a claim where you are at fault.
The more consecutive years you remain claim free, the bigger your discount.
The following table shows the number of years you haven't claimed, the NCD rating and discount you'll receive. The discount starts at 0% and goes up to 15% if you reach five claim free years.
| Claim-free years | NCD rating | Discount |
|---|---|---|
| 5 | 1 | 15% |
| 4 | 2 | 12% |
| 3 | 3 | 9% |
| 2 | 4 | 6% |
| 1 | 5 | 3% |
| 0 | 6 (None) | 0% |
Get a Quote Online and Save 15%^
Get a Car Insurance quote online and you'll receive a 15% discount on your first year's premium for a new Comprehensive or Third Party Insurance policy.
Award-Winning Australian Car Insurance
After comparing over 47,000 quotes, comparing 50 Comprehensive Policies offered by 41 insurance providers, across 42 Consumer profiles, Canstar proclaimed Budget Direct winners of the National Outstanding Value Car Insurance Award for 2023. In the process, Budget Direct became the only brand in any category to win a Canstar National Outstanding Value Award 17 years in a row.
We also won Money magazine's Best of the Best 2024 winner for Best-Value Car Insurance 6 years in a row (2019-24); Mozo Experts Choice 2023 award for Exceptional Value Car Insurance; and Finder's 2024 Best Car Insurance - Value award.
We were also rated 5 stars by LMI ClaimsComparison for our Motor and Home & Contents Insurance product. The rating is based on both quantitative and subjective data, as well as policy features that are deemed by LMI ClaimsComparison as important to a positive claims experience.
More Ways to Save on Comprehensive Car Insurance
Here are some ways you can reduce your Comprehensive Car Insurance premium even further:
You can restrict your policy to drivers over a certain age: 21+, 25+, 30+, 40+, 50+ — the biggest age range of any major insurer.
If you drive 10,000 km or less per year, you can take out a Gold Low Kilometres Comprehensive policy, which attracts a lower premium.
By increasing your Basic Excess, you may be able to reduce your premium.
For each claim free year on your claims history, you’ll receive a No Claim Discount (NCD) on your premium (capped at 5 years).
How can I get these savings?
You can select your driver age restriction, kilometres travelled and/or Basic Excess when you get a quote and buy a policy or — if you’ve already bought one – by contacting us or logging into your online account and editing your policy.
More Reasons to Choose
Budget Direct Comprehensive Car Insurance
Lodge a claim online or over the phone at any time day or night, 365 days a year.
Get a lifetime guarantee on authorised repairs to your car for as long as you own it.
If you replace your Budget Direct insured car with a similar one, we’ll automatically provide the same level of cover for your replacement car for 14 days from the purchase date – even if you don’t contact us.
Pay your premium fortnightly, monthly or yearly, the last of which is the most economical.
If you need to make a claim, we’re here to help you get back on the road as quickly and smoothly as possible.
24/7 Claims
With Budget Direct, you can conveniently make a claim online or over the phone at any time of the day or night, 365 days a year.
Budget Direct customers can make a claim, view and edit their Car Insurance policies, and buy more insurance online.
The information on this page is a summary only. For more details about Budget Direct car insurance, including the terms, conditions, limits and exclusions that apply, please read the Product Disclosure Statement (PDS).
Roadside Assistance
For just $89.95 a year – less than $1.75 a week – you can take advantage of our 24/7 nationwide Roadside Assistance service.
With our Australian network of more than 2,700 contractors, you’re never too far from help.
Comprehensive Car Insurance FAQs
Budget Direct offers three types of car insurance:
- Comprehensive covers the loss of, or damage to, your vehicle due to an accident (regardless of who's at fault), vandalism, fire, weather, and theft. It also covers damage caused by your vehicle to other people's property (e.g. their car and home).
- Third Party Property Only covers damage caused by your vehicle to other people's property (e.g. their car and home). It does not cover damage to your vehicle (unless it's damaged in a no-fault accident with an uninsured driver, in which case you have limited cover).
- Third Party Property, Fire and Theft provides the same protection as Third Party Property Only plus cover for loss or damage to your vehicle if it's stolen or catches fire.
The type of cover you have is shown on your car Insurance Certificate.
By not insuring unsafe drivers, we can keep our car insurance premiums low for safer drivers.
Depending on the type of car insurance you choose, there are a number of ways you can reduce your premium even further, namely:
- Select the right level of cover. Do you need comprehensive cover for your car, or would third party property insurance be enough?
- Set a driver-age restriction. You can get a lower premium by restricting your policy to drivers over a certain age (21+, 25+, 30+, 40+, 50+).
- Increase your excess. If you’re comprehensively insured and you increase your Basic Excess, your premium may be reduced.
- Maintain a good driving record. For each claim-free year, you’ll receive a No Claim Discount (NCD) on your premium; the NCD is capped at 5+ years, at which point we’ll give you a Rating 1.
Your decision on whether to comprehensively insure your old car will generally depend on:
- its market value; and
- your ability to cover the financial loss on your own if your car was, say, written off in an accident.
If your car has a low market value (e.g. $2,500), you may decide third party car insurance is all you need.
In other words, you may decide it’s not worth paying more for comprehensive car insurance as, over time, it could outweigh the cost of replacing your cheap car.
It’s up to you to do the maths: Figure out whether the lower protection and cheaper premium are a reasonable trade-off in your circumstances.
You can nominate your preferred repairer as long as your policy includes the ‘choice of repairer’ policy option.
If you nominate your preferred repairer, and they are not a repairer from our repair network, we’ll ask you to provide us with the repairer’s quotation for the repairs so we can determine whether:
- the quotation is competitive, and
- the proposed repair method is satisfactory.
If either of these criteria is not met, we may decide not to authorise the repairs, and instead offer you the option of:
- having your car repaired by an alternative repairer chosen by us, or
- paying you the reasonable cost to satisfactorily repair your car.
If the car is unsafe to drive, we will pay the cost to tow the car to your preferred repairer up to a maximum of 100 kilometres.
Note that, if we authorise your nominated repairer to undertake the repairs, we’ll guarantee the quality of the repairs but not the time it takes to complete them.
