What's protected by Contents Insurance?
With Contents Insurance cover, you can covered against loss or damage to your possessions that are inside your home. This refers to things like your dining table to your favourite jeans. As part of your new-for-old replacement cover, if an insured event like a storm, fire or burst pipe results in loss or damage to your possessions, we can replace your contents with new ones.
Keep in mind, your home itself is not covered by Contents Insurance. To make sure your house and structures are also protected, you'll need to look into Combined Home and Contents Insurance.
Benefits Included in Contents Insurance
We can cover additional costs for temporary accommodation for up to a year for your family and pets if your house is unliveable due to an insured event. Whether you'll be staying in a hotel for a few days or you need a long-term rental, we'll help make sure there's a roof over your head while your home is restored.
Contents Insurance includes up to $20 million in legal liability cover. Legal liability can cover you for the death or physical injury to other people, or for loss or damage to other people’s property caused by an accident. Contents Insurance provides legal liability cover anywhere in Australia.
When you make a claim on your Contents Insurance policy, we guarantee the quality of all authorised repairs, including the materials and workmanship provided. With the help of our trusted partners, you can rest assured that all authorised repairs will be performed properly.
Rest assured, we'll cover the removal of debris and extra rebuilding costs of up to 10% of your sum insured.
To ensure your belongings remain secure, we will pay up to $1,000 to replace stolen keys, locks and key codes.
To help keep pace with rising costs due to inflation, each year we’ll automatically increase the sum insured amounts of your contents and adjust your premium accordingly. This means your cover will reflect more current replacement costs than when your contents were first insured.
We do not automatically increase the sums insured for specified items or personal effects items. So, it’s important to review the value of these items regularly to make sure they are sufficiently insured for the cost of replacement.
We'll cover loss or damage to unattached equipment, spare parts or accessories (e.g. for motor vehicles, trailers and caravans) up to $500.
Terms, conditions, limits and exclusions apply. For full details, please read the Product Disclosure Statement (PDS)
Get a Quote Online and Save 15%^
If you get a quote and buy a new Contents Insurance policy online, we'll give you a 15%^ discount on your first year's premium.
Compare Contents Insurance Savings
Price Comparison Figures
What's covered by Contents Insurance?
Budget Direct Contents Insurance covers loss or damage to contents you own within your property caused by the following insured events:
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Storm and rainwater (does not cover any loss or damage caused by flood). If this doesn't meet your needs, you can add optional flood cover§.
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Fires (including bushfires and grassfires)
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Lightning
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Theft (or attempted theft)
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Escape of liquid (e.g. burst pipe)
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Impact at home (e.g. fallen tree)
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Breakage of glass, ceramic and sanitary fixtures
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Malicious damage, vandalism, riot or civil commotion
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Explosion
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Earthquake or tsunami
What’s not covered by Contents Insurance?
Budget Direct Contents Insurance does not cover you for loss or damage for every circumstance. There are exclusions such as:
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Action of the sea (eg. high tide, tidal wave)
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Asbestos
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Breaking the law
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Business activity (not including Home Office)
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Communicable disease
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Contamination or pollution
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Defects, structural faults, or design faults
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Hacking or cyberattacks
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Loss of data (including access denial, recovery, reinstallation or replacement of data)
Terms, conditions, limits and exclusions apply. Please read the Product Disclosure Statement (PDS) for full details on what’s covered by Budget Direct Home and Contents Insurance.
Award-Winning Contents Insurance
After comparing the cost and features of 72 policies, from 50 other insurers, Canstar presented us with the National award for Outstanding Value Home & Contents Insurance for the seventh year in a row in 2023.
We’ve also won Money magazine’s Insurer of the Year title seven years running (2017–2023); Best of the Best title for Home & Contents Insurance (2022-2024); and Finder's 2023 Best Home Insurance - Value award.
We were also rated 5 stars by LMI Claims Comparison 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.
Upgrade Your Contents Insurance Cover
Need more cover? For an additional premium, you can customise your Contents Insurance policy by adding one or more of the following optional covers:
If you take out optional Flood Cover, this can cover 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.
Learn more about Flood Cover
§ The addition of Flood Cover to a policy is subject to our underwriting criteria.
Motor Burnout Cover covers you for loss or damage to electric motors that are less than ten years old if the motor burns out due to an electric current or power surge. Electric motors are commonly found in home appliances like fridges, freezers, or washing machines. If you have Contents insurance, we can also pay for related food spoilage as a result of motor burnout.
Learn more about Motor Burnout
Accidental damage is loss or damage caused by a sudden, unintended and unexpected event that is not the result of a deliberate act – useful if you want to be covered for some damage that’s not automatically included as part of your Contents Insurance. For example, spilling red wine on a carpet by mistake, or unintentionally dropping and breaking a fragile item, such as a vase.
Learn more about Accidental Damage
Personal Effects Cover insures the personal belongings you take with you away from your home (such as jewellery, sunglasses and cameras). This benefit is sometimes known as Portable Contents Cover.
Learn more about Personal Effects
With Commercial Storage Cover, you’ll be insured for loss or damage by an insured event to your belongings while they're stored in a commercial storage facility.
How do I add an optional cover to my Contents Insurance 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 – add optional cover by contacting us or logging into your online account and editing your policy.
How much cover do I need?
When you buy Contents Insurance, it's up to you to determine how much it would cost to replace your contents if they were destroyed, for example, by fire. This is known as the ‘sum insured’.
These are the maximum amounts we’ll pay after an insured event, so it’s important that the sum insured you nominate is sufficient to replace all of your contents at today’s prices.
To simplify your insurance journey, we have some calculators to help you work out how much home insurance you might need.
How To Make a Claim
If your contents suffer loss or damage, or are destroyed by an insured event and you need to make a claim, we’re here to help.
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.
Manage Your Policy Online
Budget Direct customers can make a claim, view and edit their Contents Insurance policies, and buy more insurance online.
Do you need more cover?
If your contents are covered with Contents Insurance then you might also want to consider covering your home itself. With Budget Direct's Combined Home and Contents Insurance you can get 30%^ off your first year's premium when you purchase a new policy online.
Owner-occupiers aren't the only ones who may benefit from insuring their property. You can also protect your investment property with Budget Direct Landlord Insurance.
Do you rent the home you live in? If you’re a tenant, you can protect your valuable possessions with Budget Direct Renters Insurance.
Find out more
The information on this page is a summary only. For more details about Budget Direct Contents Insurance, including the terms, conditions, limits and exclusions that apply, please read the Product Disclosure Statement (PDS).
Contents Insurance FAQs
Among other things, a Budget Direct Contents Insurance policy covers loss or damage to:
furniture and furnishings
household electrical appliances
kitchenware
clothing and shoes
valuables like jewellery (limits apply), sunglasses and cameras (if you want your portable items to be insured when you take them with you away from your home, you’ll need to get extra Personal Effects Cover).
fitted carpets and rugs
internal blinds, curtains and window coverings.
Note that benefit limits apply to certain contents.
It’s up to you to determine how much it would cost to replace your home and contents – the ‘sums insured’ – if they were totally destroyed, for example, by fire.
It’s the maximum amount we’ll pay, so it’s important you’re comfortable that the amount you nominate is sufficient to replace your entire home and all of your contents at today’s prices.
Use these calculators to help you estimate how much it would cost to replace your home and contents.
For a more accurate rebuilding cost estimate, we recommend you consult a professional valuer or building contractor.
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 premium.
Increasing your excess: Choose an excess from $100 to $5,000; by increasing your excess, you could lower your premium.
Paying your premium annually: By paying annually instead of in instalments (i.e. fortnightly or monthly), you’ll pay a lower premium and avoid instalment processing fees.
Yes – Budget Direct Contents Insurance covers loss or damage to your carpets.
Note that there is a limit on the amount we’ll pay to replace hand-woven carpets and rugs.
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
musical instruments
photographic equipment
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.
