Home Insurance Quotes

‘Home insurance’ is an umbrella term that encompasses three variations of cover:

• Home and Contents Insurance covers your house and other structures on your property (such as a garage or shed) as well as your belongings for loss or damage due to an insured event like a fire, theft and storm. It is also known as Building and Contents Insurance.

• Home Building Insurance covers your house and other structures on your property, including your garden shed, fences and in-ground swimming pool for loss or damage from an insured event.

• Contents Insurance covers the belongings inside your home, including furniture, whitegoods, electrical appliances, clothing, and more for loss or damage from an insured event.

Terms, conditions, limits and exclusions apply to Budget Direct home insurance; for full details, please read the product disclosure statement.

There are several ways you can reduce your Budget Direct home and/or contents insurance cost, including:

• Selecting the right level of home insurance cover: Our range of optional covers means you'll only pay for the cover you need. For example, you don’t have to pay for flood cover if you don’t think you need it.

• Buying your home insurance policy online: If you get a quote and buy a policy online, you’ll receive 15%^ off (Home Building Insurance only or Contents Insurance only) or 30%^ off (Home and Contents Insurance) on your first year’s premium.

• Increasing your home insurance excess: When getting Home Insurance, you'll choose an excess between $100 and $5,000; by increasing your excess, you could lower your premium. Always choose an excess you’ll be comfortable to pay at claim time.

• Paying your home insurance premium annually: By paying Home and Contents Insurance policies annually instead of in instalments (i.e. fortnightly or monthly), you’ll pay a lower premium and avoid instalment processing fees.

Your lawyer or conveyancer will usually recommend Home Insurance for your home (or investment property) when you exchange signed copies of the purchase contract with the seller.

Also, most mortgage lenders require you to take out Home Insurance before the loan becomes unconditional.

Your home and/or contents can be covered for floods if you include Budget Direct’s optional Flood Cover in your policy.

This Home Insurance cover protects you against loss or damage caused by a flood. 

We define a ‘flood’ as the covering of normally dry land by water that has escaped or been released from the normal confines of a lake, river, creek or other natural watercourse (whether or not any of them have been altered or modified) or a reservoir, canal, or dam.

You can apply to add Flood Cover to your home and/or contents cover when you get a quote and buy home insurance or – if you’ve already bought cover – by calling us on 1800 182 310 or logging into your online account and editing your policy.

If you meet our underwriting criteria, we’ll approve your application.

Note that your Flood Cover will take effect 72 hours after you add it to your Home Insurance policy, unless the policy:

• commenced immediately after another policy covering the same risks expired, without a break in cover

• commenced on the same day you bought your home or moved to a new address.

We offer Personal Effects cover as an optional extra for your contents insurance. This can cover a wide range of categories of belongings, including:

• bicycles
  
• clothing
• jewellery/watches
• sporting equipment
• medical aids
• mobile phones (specified only)
• laptops/tablets (specified only)
• e-scooters.

To find out how much this coverage might cost, you can get a quote online.

Yes — Budget Direct home and/or contents insurance covers loss or damage due to bushfires.

We’ll pay to repair or — if it burns to the ground — replace your home (and/or contents), up to the sum you’ve insured it for. 

(Depending on the circumstances, your property’s bushfire cover may not take effect until 72 hours after you purchase the policy.)

Budget Direct Home Insurance can cover sudden or unexpected loss or damage to your home’s plumbing systems due to one of our 10 insured events. 

However, we won’t cover the cost to repair or replace drainage, sewage, heating or cooling systems that have become faulty or leaky due to gradual and expected wear and tear (e.g. rusty pipes). 

That’s because these problems are considered preventable through periodic maintenance and repairs. 

This includes clogged toilets, blocked drains, leaky fixtures, faulty hot-water systems, and low water pressure. 

While you’re responsible for the cost of maintenance and repairs, we can cover the cost to repair unforeseen escape of liquid (e.g. damage caused by a leaky pipe in a wall cavity).  

If we accept a claim for escape of liquid, we’ll pay the reasonable costs to investigate the escape of liquid, if it’s causing damage to your home or contents. However, we don’t cover repairs to the burst pipe, or other leak source.

Yes – your Budget Direct-insured home and/or contents are covered for damage or loss due to violent winds, lightning, rain, hail and snow.

This cover includes the escape of rainwater from any water pipe, drain or gutter; and surface run-off of rainwater from surrounding areas that occurs within 24 hours of the storm or heavy rain.

To insure your home against floods, you need to take out optional Flood Cover.

Budget Direct can cover the cost to repair or replace your hot-water system (e.g. electric, heat pump, solar) if it’s damaged or destroyed by an insured event (e.g. a fire).

We can also cover any damage to your home and/or contents caused by water escaping from the system.

However, we won’t cover the cost to repair or replace a faulty hot-water system.