‘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.

Among other things, a Budget Direct contents insurance policy covers loss or damage to:

• furniture and furnishings
• computers and electrical appliances
• kitchenware
• clothing and shoes
• valuables like jewellery, 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.

There are a number of ways you can reduce your Budget Direct home and/or contents insurance premium, including:

• Select 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.
• Buy 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.
• Increase your excess: Choose an excess between $100 and $5,000; by increasing your excess, you could lower your premium.
• Pay 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.

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.

No – you’ll be required to pay only the higher of the two Basic excesses you have selected.