How much have home insurance premiums increased in Australia?

The average combined home and contents insurance premium in Australia rose from $1,612 in 2021–22 to $2,360 in 2024–25, an increase of 46.4%, according to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s June 2026 Insurance Monitoring Report. Over the longer run, the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ broader insurance price index rose 51.7% between the March quarters of 2020 and 2026, well ahead of the 25.6% rise in overall consumer prices and the 19.6% rise in wages over the same period.

The increase has coincided with higher rebuilding costs, a sharp but temporary rise in reinsurance costs, and a run of costly natural disasters, though no single factor fully explains the increase. The latest data also shows that premium trends vary across Australia. Premiums are still climbing nationally, but reinsurance costs have started to fall, insurer profitability has improved, and one region recorded the fastest premium growth in the country despite having among the lowest average premiums.

Measured in 2024–25 dollars, the combined premium rose from $1,841 to $2,360, a real increase of 28.2% after adjusting for inflation. The gap between the nominal rise (46.4%) and the real rise (28.2%) shows that general price inflation accounts for part, but not most, of the combined premium increase.

The effect of adjusting for inflation differs by product. The real increase was 30.0% for building cover, compared with a nominal increase of 48.4%. For contents cover, the increase fell from 20.1% in nominal terms to 5.1% after inflation. This means that most of the increase in contents premiums disappears once general inflation is removed, while building and combined premiums still record substantial real increases.

Over the longer period, APRA estimates that average home insurance premiums rose by 7.2% a year between 2010 and 2025, compared with average annual wage growth of 3.1%.

The market behind these premiums is also expanding. Gross earned premium across the 15 insurers the ACCC monitors reached $14.0 billion in 2024–25, up 10% from $12.8 billion the year before. Net profit before tax across home, contents, strata and eligible small business insurance reached $2.8 billion in 2024–25, up 154% on the prior year. The ACCC attributed the increase to higher premium rates, favourable reinsurance outcomes, lower underwriting costs and improved investment returns. Three of the 15 insurers monitored still recorded a net loss.

APRA’s quarterly data for the householders class of business shows premium revenue and claims moving in opposite directions over the latest annual comparison. Gross accrued premium rose 7.7%, to $4.258 billion in the March quarter of 2026 from $3.954 billion a year earlier, while gross claims incurred fell 30.9% over the same quarter, to $3.247 billion from $4.698 billion. APRA’s premium figure measures total industry revenue rather than the price of an individual policy. It can change because of policy numbers, insured values and levels of coverage, as well as premium prices.

Combined, weather and non-weather claims-related costs make up just under half of the average premium. Expenses, taxes, levies and reinsurance make up the rest. The sections below examine three factors associated with home insurance costs: rebuilding costs, natural disasters and the reinsurance market that insurers use to spread risk.

The February–March 2022 floods across northern New South Wales and south-east Queensland remain the costliest single event in this period. They generated more than 240,000 claims worth $6 billion, including $3.4 billion in home property claims and $710 million in home contents claims.

Ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred, which struck south-east Queensland and northern New South Wales in March 2025, generated the most claims of any other single event that year, more than 133,000, for insured losses of $1.5 billion. It was overtaken as the costliest event of 2025 by a severe storm and hail event across Queensland and New South Wales in November, which produced insured losses of $1.78 billion from around 93,000 claims. Cyclone Jasper in 2023 generated insured losses of $409 million from around 10,500 claims.

For home and contents insurance specifically, the ACCC reported that gross claims costs fell by $224 million to $6.3 billion in 2024–25, with about $2.0 billion of that offset by reinsurance recoveries. Official data does not provide a percentage-point breakdown of how much of the premium increase since 2020 is attributable separately to floods, cyclones, bushfires, building costs or reinsurance.

Premium growth and underlying risk pricing do not move together within these regions either. North Queensland’s premium per $100,000 insured fell 3% in 2024–25, even as its overall average premium rose 4%, suggesting that higher sums insured contributed to the overall increase rather than a rise in the price charged per $100,000 insured.

North Western Australia shows a similar pattern: its premium per $100,000 insured rose only 3%, against an 8% rise in its overall premium. In the Northern Territory and the rest of Australia, the two measures moved closer together, up 2% and 7% respectively against overall increases of 6% and 10%. This suggests that changes in the price charged per $100,000 insured played a larger role in those two regions.

The highest average premiums were concentrated in parts of north Western Australia and the Northern Territory. Six of the ten highest-premium Statistical Area Level 3 (SA3) areas in 2025 had average annual premiums of at least $5,000:

• West Pilbara
• East Pilbara
• Gascoyne
• Kimberley
• Darwin City
• East Arnhem

In medium-to-high cyclone-risk areas, average premiums per $100,000 insured fell 11% in the first year after an insurer joined the cyclone reinsurance pool and 14% in the second year.

Building-only quotes in medium-to-high cyclone-risk areas were 17% to 37% lower in January 2026 than in October 2022, with quote success rates up 25% to 27% over the same span, according to a separate analysis by the Australian Reinsurance Pool Corporation. This analysis used standardised online quotes rather than actual policy renewals.

The two findings are not directly comparable. The ACCC analyses insurer-supplied premiums for new and renewing policies before and after insurers entered the pool, using a shorter post-entry window.

What Australian homeowners said about insurance affordability

An ACCC survey of 1,039 homeowners conducted during January and February 2026 found:

• Nationally, 45% rated their home insurance as unaffordable (6%) or barely affordable (39%).
• The combined proportion was 48% in medium-to-high cyclone-risk areas, compared with 44% in nil-to-low-risk areas.
• In Western Australia, 21% of respondents in medium-to-high cyclone-risk areas rated their policy as unaffordable, compared with 2% in nil-to-low-risk areas.
• Among the 932 respondents asked about their most recent renewal, 80% said their premium had increased.

The ACCC survey measures reported affordability rather than income-based financial stress. Its findings are therefore not directly comparable with the Actuaries Institute’s modelled figures above.

About one in seven households living in existing freestanding properties could be uninsured in 2024. Under both 2050 stress-test scenarios, the proportion could rise to around one in four.

New South Wales and Queensland account for around 60% of uninsured homes nationally, both in APRA’s current modelling and under its two 2050 scenarios. Of the 20 SA3 regions with the widest protection gaps in the current modelling, 90% are in these two states.

APRA said unaffordable insurance could reduce the number of mortgage borrowers able to meet lenders’ insurance requirements and increase credit risks for banks. Separately, no official source currently measures the share of insured Australian households whose sum insured is too low to cover the full cost of rebuilding. APRA did not directly model this form of underinsurance because of its complexity.

Overall, the data shows that home insurance premiums have risen across Australia since 2020, but no official source provides a percentage-point breakdown of how much each factor contributed. Rebuilding costs, natural disasters and reinsurance markets have influenced premiums at different points during the period.

The latest ACCC data shows that reinsurance costs fell and the combined operating ratio improved in 2024–25, while average premiums continued to rise. Affordability pressures remained concentrated in regional and rural Australia and in areas with higher cyclone and flood risk.