What home insurance optional extras should I consider?

Tailoring your Home and Contents Insurance policy with selected add-ons can help you align your coverage with your lifestyle needs.

Optional extras are policy enhancements that you can choose to add to your Home Insurance for an additional premium. These add-ons can provide you with specialised protection against specific risks and allow you to tailor a plan to suit your individual needs.

While our award-winning Home and Contents Insurance provides an excellent standard cover, our optional extras can also provide cover for what's most important to you.

It's also worth a quick mention up-front that we can't offer specific advice on your circumstances. Everyone is different, and it's up to you to decide what optional extras you should consider on your Home and/or Contents Insurance policy.

Eligibility criteria may also apply.

Accidents happen around the home all the time so the optional Accidental Damage cover may be beneficial for you.

Our Accidental Damage cover protects your belongings and home if any mishaps occur. These accidents can include spilling red wine on the carpet, knocking over a can of paint, scorching your benchtop with a hot pan, or dropping fragile items. However, this optional extra doesn’t cover the normal wear and tear of your house due to aging and is limited to accidents for insured items only.

Flood is defined 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)
• a reservoir, canal or dam.

If you’re concerned about a flood, it could be useful to look into your Home Insurance and decide whether it's worth adding optional flood cover as an extra.

There are also some general exclusions that might be confused with “flood”. These are the events that are excluded from your coverage:

• Action of the sea, high water or underground water, such as events like
  • King tides
  • Rises in ocean levels
  • Storm surges
  • High tide
  • Tidal waves
• Underground water seepage or pressure
• Hydrostatic pressure.

Learn more about Budget Direct's Flood Insurance.

Are you worried about a power surge or fusion that may affect some of your home and appliances?

Budget Direct's motor burnout cover includes insurance for electrical items where the motor fails due to an electric current such as electrical burnout, a power surge or a combination of these.

Motor burnout can occur when an overcurrent or short circuit generates intense heat, causing wires and other metallic parts inside the motor to melt and create a fusion. This can permanently damage the motor and cause it to fail. Should this happen and you've added motor burnout cover to your policy, we will pay to repair the motor or if it’s more than the cost of the item itself, we will replace the item.

For Budget Direct motor burnout, the incident must take place at your insured address and only applies to appliances that are connected to the home's fixed wiring, and not other issues such as other electrical issues. It's best to keep in mind that with this cover, the costs to hire a replacement motor or appliance aren’t covered.

With our optional portable contents insurance, called Personal Effects, items covered under this option are covered at the insured address and when away from the home (anywhere in Australia or New Zealand, and elsewhere in the world for up to 90 days of your departure from Australia).

This optional cover can give you the comfort of knowing some items will be covered away from the home with our personal effects optional cover.

With unspecified personal effects insurance, you will be covered for a variety of unspecified items up to $1,000 per item. These items include but are not limited to:

• Children's toys
• Cosmetics and toiletries
• Handbags, briefcases, wallets and other travel bags (but not their contents inside)
• Jewellery and watches
• Video and photographic equipment (accessories not used for business purposes)
• Medical aids including hearing aids, dentures, wheelchairs, walking sticks and crutches.

Items that are not covered within this optional extra include mobiles, tickets and small motorised vehicles such as go-karts and mini-bikes.

However, if you're concerned about losing your mobile phone or a higher-value item that's worth more than $300, you can insure these individually as optional specified personal effects. Find what's covered in the Product Disclosure Statement (PDS).

Landlord Insurance is designed to protect you financially in case an unexpected situation occurs if you own an investment property.

With Budget Direct's optional extras, you can choose to protect your investment property by adding Landlord optional extras to your Home and Contents policy.

For an additional premium, you can add cover for tenant-related risks. This includes the Tenant Default cover in case your tenant fails to pay their rent or leaves unexpectedly, or Tenant Theft and Malicious Damage Cover to protect you from loss, damage or destruction to your investment property. Eligibility criteria applies.

It can be tricky to know how much Home Insurance you need, which is why adding the Sum Insured Safeguard optional extra could be worthwhile. If the assessed cost to repair or rebuild your home turns out to be higher than the amount you're insured for, we will cover up to 25% on top of your insured amount if the Sum Insured Safeguard is included on your policy.

If a sudden rise in material costs or a shortage of skilled labour pushes rebuilding expenses above your original coverage amount, our Sum Insured Safeguard can help provide you with protection.

Exclusions apply to certain policy limits such as landlord, removal of debris and temporary accommodation benefits as detailed in the Product Disclosure Statement (PDS).

To get a new policy or modify your existing insurance, simply follow these quick and easy steps:

Purchasing a new policy

1. Decide on your Home Insurance and if you’d like to add any optional extras to your cover
2. Get a quote in as little as 2 minutes by visiting our Home Insurance page
3. Provide your full details and information and purchase your policy

Adding optional extras to your existing policy

1. Log into the Policy Manager
2. View your Home Insurance policy
3. Click on or tap the 'Modify Policy'/'Cover Option' button
4. Follow the prompts