Comprehensive Car Insurance in Australia: Your Guide

Getting comprehensive car insurance in Australia means you’ll be covered for most eventualities with crashes and accidents. Great news for those of us who are risk averse and don’t have a ton of cash to spare if we or someone else slips up on the road! Or driveway… garage… parking lot… during bad weather… because thieves like the look of our car… or…

You get the drift.

That said, it isn’t mandatory for Australians to have this level of cover unless they have finance owing on their vehicle. Some drivers do opt to go for lesser cover and take the risk of having to replace their car out of their own pocket. Or getting used to taking the bus if something goes wrong.

Only you can make that decision. To help, here’s our guide to what exactly comprehensive insurance covers when it comes to you and your vehicle.

Types of car insurance in Australia

If you own a car in Australia, there are a few types of insurance available to you. Of the four types of car insurance available, compulsory third party insurance is the only one that is mandatory for everyone who registers a vehicle.

Here’s a brief overview of the main types of car insurance on the market:

• Compulsory Third Party (CTP). Your CTP covers legal costs for injuries caused to other people in an accident you’re involved in. This is mandatory insurance in Australia and you can’t register a vehicle without having it in place. Regardless of what state or territory you live in.
• Third Party Property. Covers damage you cause to other people’s property in an accident, including their vehicle. However, it generally doesn’t provide cover for damage to your own vehicle… Depending on your insurer, you may be covered if you’re not at fault in an accident and the third party driver is uninsured).
• Third Party, Fire and Theft. This type of insurance covers the same as third party property insurance, as well as providing cover for your vehicle in the event it’s stolen or catches fire.
• Comprehensive Car Insurance. Covers damage for everything mentioned above including extensive cover for your own vehicle, whether you’re at fault or not in an accident. Additionally, getting comprehensive car insurance in Australia will mean that you’re covered for a wide variety of other insured events.

Comprehensive car insurance cover in Australia for a soft landing

Comprehensive insurance, as the name suggests, gives the most comprehensive cover available. Your policy will cover you for repair or replacement of your car in the event of a collision, theft of your vehicle, malicious damage, fire, and weather-related damage.

On top of cover for your own vehicle, it should cover repair or replacement of other vehicles or property damaged by your car during an accident or collision.

That’s serious coverage.

Cover if you’re at fault or not

One of the big bonuses of comprehensive car insurance in Australia is that you’re safeguarded even if it’s your mistake that resulted in the claim. As long the insurer deems it a claimable event, of course.

You’re still up for paying an excess, but that’s a much softer financial landing than paying for the repair or replacement of any cars involved.

This offers drivers peace of mind that if they have an error of judgement making a turn in traffic, or accidentally back into someone in a carpark, they’re still covered. Yep, even if you’re at fault.

After all, mistakes happen to the best of us. But still, why not check out our tips on defensive driving to help keep that driving record squeaky clean?

As a side note – albeit a very important one – when you submit your details for a quote for comprehensive car insurance in Australia, be truthful, accurate and complete with your application. This helps ensure you’ll have appropriate insurance coverage in your time of need and your insurer can easily process your claim once they have all the requisite details and documentation.

Falsifying information on an insurance policy can result in non-payment of a claim and cancellation of your policy (eeek). No one wants to be in that position. When you’re mid car crisis you simply want your claim resolved without a hitch, right?

Extra goodies with your cover

It’s important to also note, comprehensive car insurance often comes with added inclusions and optional extras. These can range from roadside assistance to the use of hire cars when your vehicle needs repairing or replacing.

One of PD Insurance’s most popular add-ons is our Excess Buster. With this, we’ll pay your excess once a year if you need it.

What’s the cost of comprehensive car insurance in Australia?

Car insurance premiums are calculated on a huge variety of individual factors, so it’s almost impossible to give someone a ballpark figure before they’ve gone through the quoting process.

Your individual premium will depend firstly on the car itself. It takes into consideration things like how old your car is, the mileage, the value, its safety rating and whether you’ve had any modifications or improvements made to it.

On top of that, your individual profile will also be taken into account. A variety of different factors will decide the premium of your comprehensive car insurance in Australia, including:

• The area where your car is parked
• Whether you’ve had previous claims or accidents
• Your demographics such as age, sex, marital status and so on
• Your excess
• Whether you’ve gone with market value or agreed value

These factors come together to decide your risk profile. The more of a risk you are deemed to be to the insurer, the higher your premium. It’s important to note that, along with policyholder variables, the underwriting processes are different at each insurer.

So while you might get a great price at Insurer A and a much higher price at Insurer B, your friend might have the opposite experience.

Decided that comprehensive cover might be the best option for you? Find out more about PD Insurance’s comprehensive car insurance here.