Affordable cover
Winner of Money magazine’s Best of the Best award for Cheapest Home & Contents Insurance in 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2022.
Guaranteed repairs
We guarantee the quality of all authorised repairs, including the materials and workmanship.
Temporary accommodation||
If your house is unliveable due to an insured event, we’ll give you and your pets temporary accommodation for up to a year.
Optional flood cover‡
Only about 20% of Australian homes have some risk of flood – you only pay for flood cover if you want to.
New-for-old replacement
If your belongings are stolen or damaged beyond repair, we’ll pay to replace them with new ones.
Legal liability
Up to $20 million of cover for someone else’s accidental injury or death (or for loss or damage to someone else's property) at the insured address (home insurance) or anywhere in Australia (contents insurance).
24/7 claims
You can lodge a claim over the phone or online at any time of the day or night, 365 days a year.
Inflation protection
Each year we’ll increase the amounts your home and contents are insured for – to help keep pace with rising costs.
Terms, conditions, limits and exclusions apply. For full details, please read the Product Disclosure Statement (PDS).
Compare before you buy and choose the home insurance that’s right for you. Not all benefits apply to all levels of cover.
Home Insurance cover options
Covers loss or damage to your house and outbuildings due to events like storms, fire and theft.
- Repair or replacement of your home
- Repair or replacement of your contents
- Temporary Accommodation
- Legal liability up to $20 million
Covers loss or damage to your home contents due to events like storms, fire, and theft.
- Repair or replacement of your home
- Repair or replacement of your contents
- Temporary Accommodation
- Legal liability up to $20 million
Insurance across a wide range of events
Budget Direct Home and Contents Insurance covers your house and personal possessions against loss or damage cause by the following insured events:
Upgrade your cover
For an additional premium, you can customise your home and contents insurance policies by adding one or more of the following optional covers:
How do I add an optional cover to my policy?
You can add one or more of these optional covers when you get a quote and buy a policy or – if you’ve already bought a policy – by contacting us or logging into your online account and editing your policy.
Landlords and renters
There is no one-size-fits-all solution to insurance. If you’re renting or leasing a property, find the home and contents insurance solutions tailored to your needs.
Landlord’s Insurance
Landlords can look to insure their investment property against a range of insured events. For extra peace of mind, they may also be eligible to add optional covers for loss or rent (Tenant Default) and malicious damage and theft by the tenant.
Renter’s Insurance
Renters can cover loss or damage to the household goods and personal effects they own, or a legally responsible for.
Compare Home Insurance savings
Compared with previous insurers’ premiums, customers across Australia who switched to Budget Direct Home Insurance (from a comparable product) told us they saved an average of:
$###†
Use our Comparitron™ tool to compare savings against other insurers.
Award-winning Home Insurance
After comparing the cost and features of 127 policies offered by 52 insurers, Canstar presented us with the National award for Outstanding Value Home & Contents Insurance for the fifth year in a row in 2021.
We’ve also won Money magazine’s Insurer of the Year title six years running (2017–2022); and Best of the Best title for Home & Contents Insurance in 2022.
We were also rated 5 stars by LMI Claims Comparison for our Motor & Home & Contents service. 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.
How much cover do I need?
When you buy insurance, it’s up to you to determine how much it would cost to replace your home and/or contents if they were destroyed. To help make your insurance journey simpler, we’ve prepared a range of calculators from leading financial advisors.
Make a claim and manage your policy
Budget Direct customers can make a claim, view and edit their Home Insurance policy, and buy more insurance online.
Find out more
The information on this page is a summary only. For more details about Budget Direct Home and Contents Insurance, including the terms, conditions, limits and exclusions that apply, please read the Product Disclosure Statement (PDS).
Frequently asked questions
What does home insurance cover?
‘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 as well as your belongings for loss or damage due to events like fire, theft and storms.
- Home insurance covers your house and other structures on your property, including your garden shed, fences, and in-ground swimming pool.
- Contents insurance covers the belongings inside your home, including furniture, whitegoods, electrical appliances, clothing, and more.
Terms, conditions, limits and exclusions apply to Budget Direct home insurance; for full details, please read the product disclosure statement.
Can I get cheaper home insurance?
There are several ways you can reduce your Budget Direct home and/or contents insurance premium, including:
- Selecting the right level of cover: Our range of optional benefits means you don’t have to pay for cover you may not need, e.g. flood cover.
- Buying your policy online: If you get a quote and buy a policy online, you’ll receive a 15% (home or contents) or 30% (home and contents) discount on your first year’s premium.
- Increasing your excess: 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 premium annually: By paying annually instead of in instalments (i.e. fortnightly or monthly), you’ll pay a smaller premium and avoid administration fees.
When should I get home insurance?
Your lawyer or conveyancer will usually recommend you insure 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 insurance before the loan becomes unconditional.
If you do take out insurance, it’s important to ensure your sum insured would be enough to repair or replace your home and/or contents, should they be lost or damaged.
Does home insurance cover floods?
Your home and/or contents can be covered for floods if you take out Budget Direct’s optional ‘Flood Cover’.
This cover protects you against loss or damage caused by flooding rivers, creeks, lakes, dams and other bodies of water.
You can apply to add Flood Cover to your home and/or contents insurance policy when you get a quote and buy 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 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.
This is designed to stop people taking out cover immediately before anticipated floods and then claiming. This in turn helps keep your premiums down.
Does home insurance cover valuables I take with me away from my home?
We offer Personal Effects cover as an optional extra to cover your portable contents. This can cover a wide range of categories of belongings, including:
- bicycles
- clothing
- jewellery/watches
- musical instruments
- photographic equipment
- sporting equipment
- medical aids.
To find out how much this coverage might cost, you can get a quote online.
Home insurance knowledge base
Terms and conditions
*Based on a survey of Budget Direct Home Insurance customers conducted between 10 February 2015 and 31 March 2022. Visit www.budgetdirectreviews.com.au for more details.
|| Benefit capped at 10% of sum insured when your home is unliveable due to an insured event. Terms and conditions apply.
§ The addition of Flood Cover to a policy is subject to our underwriting criteria.
†{comparitron-disclaimer}
‡Flood data based on analysis conducted by Auto & General Insurance Company Ltd. Subject to underwriting terms and conditions, please see PDS for details.
