While there’s no insurance product specifically for seniors, older Australians have a range of insurance options to choose from to protect their homes against things like burglaries, bushfires, storm damage and more. These include:
Your golden years are meant to be a time for comfort and relaxation, not for paying unexpected costs. By covering your house and belongings with home and contents insurance you can enjoy your retirement with peace of mind.
What’s important for many seniors to consider is that different policies can better suit changing needs.
Interested in this kind of cover? To see which home and contents insurance policies work for you from our range of available brands, read through the relevant Product Disclosure Statement (PDS) and the Target Market Determination (TMD) to see if the policy is applicable to you.
You may find that coverage for home and contents cover varies between policies and insurance providers, so it’s important to compare your options to make sure you’re aiming for minimum premiums and maximum protection.
However, home and contents insurance generally covers (but is not limited to):
Depending on your policy, you may also have a choice of optional extras to add to your cover, including:
You should carefully read over the PDS for the full details of your level of cover and any exclusions before purchasing any optional cover for a new policy.
Providers may offer different types of policy discounts, like an online discount when you purchase a policy online, or when you bundle several types of insurance with the one provider (e.g. car and home).
The cost of home insurance depends on several factors, including the type of coverage, the insurance provider you select, your house’s age, its location and building materials. It will also consider factors specific to you, such as your claims history and your retirement status.
However, policies can vary significantly in price, and just because you’re regarded as senior, you may not necessarily pay more for your home and contents insurance.
One thing you might want to keep in mind is that, sometimes, paying your premium annually as opposed to monthly may lower your insurance costs. Be sure to check the T&Cs of your policy for these benefits. Your sum insured (i.e. the amount you’ll be paid out for your home or belongings if they were completely destroyed by an insured event) can also have a significant impact on your home insurance costs.
An excellent way to find out how much you might pay for home insurance is to compare policies from a range of providers. Our comparison service can help you explore your options for home insurance.
If you live in a retirement home, you may already be covered by home/building or strata insurance, which is the responsibility of the village operators; in which case, contents insurance would be the ideal solution to protecting your possessions within your retirement home.
However, not all senior living places will provide home insurance to their residents, so you may still need your own policy for your retirement home. It’s best to check with management for more information about what type of cover is required.
In 2021, over 80% of Australian seniors (those aged 65 and over) lived in a private dwelling, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.1 Just over 20% of those seniors spend more than 30% of their gross weekly income on housing, which is up slightly from 8% in 2017–18.2
All this is to say that millions of seniors in Australia could find value in an insurance product that provides peace of mind and protects their household and belongings. With a significant portion of income post-retirement being spent on household upkeep, the financial outlay to replace either your contents or the property itself could be devastating for some. Home and contents insurance is a sensible investment for anyone looking to mitigate that risk.
Senior Australians have plenty of expenses to worry about, but home insurance doesn’t have to be one of them. That’s why it pays to compare your options through a comparison website – to find great value cover with the features you need.
So, whether you need home, contents or both kinds of insurance for your property, get quotes with our comparison service in minutes.
1 Australian Institute of Health and Welfare – Home ownership: Home ownership by age group. ABS – Housing: Census 2021. Accessed March 2023.
2 Australian Bureau of Statistics – Housing Occupancy and Costs. 2019-20. Accessed March 2023.
