Comprehensive Car Insurance Guide: Everything You Need To Know

What’s included in your comprehensive policy will depend on your insurance provider and personal specifications (e.g. the value of your car and if you’ve included any optional extras on top of basic cover). Check your product disclosure statement (PDS) for all the details of what your policy covers, the dollar limit on pay-outs and any exclusions.

With this in mind, things you’ll commonly see covered in comprehensive car insurance policies include:

• Damages you cause to other people’s vehicles or property, as you’d receive with third party car insurance.
• Repair or replacement costs for your own wheels after an accident or disaster (like storms, fires or vandalism).
• Emergency support like towing, travel and accommodation cover, or emergency repairs to get you back on the road.
• Repair or replacement of some personal property you keep inside your car.
• Replacement keys if they’re stolen.

Additional features you’ll often see offered as an optional extra (for an extra fee) include:

• Rental car cover while your ride is being repaired, usually for a daily dollar limit and set number of days. This may be a standard inclusion in some circumstances like theft, but an optional extra after an accident where you’re at-fault.
• Roadside assistance for mechanical assessments if you break down and on-the-spot fixes for things like flat batteries.
• Rideshare cover if you use your car to make money through services like Uber or Lyft.
• Cover for modifications to your car.
• Reducing or removing the excess you pay when you claim for windscreen repairs.

Remember: in all cases these inclusions will likely have caveats to what’s covered and limits to what the insurance company will pay for a single claim.

You won’t find standard wear and tear coverage at any level of car insurance, so you can’t claim on things like electrical or mechanical breakdowns, worn-down tyres or rust damage. Comprehensive insurance is also void if you were doing anything illegal during the claim event. This includes driving over the legal blood alcohol limit or under the influence of drugs, breaking any road rules, or overloading your vehicle beyond the manufacturer’s recommendations.

Don’t forget: your car must be fully registered and insurance premiums paid, or your claim will be rejected.

There are a huge number of companies providing comprehensive car insurance, so it’s important to trawl through policy details and see who’s offering the best deal to match your car and driver profile. While everyone will have slightly different insurance needs, there are a few policy features worth comparing across providers.

• Roadside assistance, which comes in handy when you have a flat battery or lock your keys inside your car. This might come as separate cover, or be bundled into a comprehensive policy.

• Personal property cover is useful for people who keep valuable items like sunglasses or work equipment in the car. It usually has an overall limit of around $500, but some come with additional cover for things like baby seats.

• Hire car cover may be essential if you use your car daily. You’ll be kitted out with a rental vehicle (with a time and dollar limit) to keep you driving.

• Emergency repairs usually cover $500 to $1000 work without requiring an insurance assessment, so you can get back on the road sooner.

• Windscreen excess reduction is useful for people who drive regularly on unsealed roads. It means you can cut or entirely remove the excess you need to pay when you make a claim for windscreen or window glass repairs, so the excess doesn’t outweigh the value of claiming.

• New-for-old replacement cover means insurance companies will replace your car with a similar model of equal value if it’s written-off. This is a good feature if you’ve got a pricer car or are still paying off a car loan and don’t want to accrue extra debt if a replacement costs more than anticipated.

The value of comprehensive car insurance comes down to the premium versus protection trade-off. If you drive a valuable car, whether it’s a shiny new model or a classic vintage ride, it may be worth getting comprehensive car insurance, since repairing or replacing your wheels could be costly. The price of annual cover should certainly be lower than the value of your car.

But it’s a personal choice as well as a mathematical one – some drivers simply feel more at ease knowing they’ll be protected financially if they get into an accident. So, in short, it’s really up to each driver to determine whether or not comprehensive car insurance is worth the cost.

If you’ve determined that your car requires comprehensive coverage, you’ll want to purchase a policy as soon as possible after purchasing the car. It can be helpful to take out comprehensive cover at the same time you register your vehicle and sort out compulsory third party (CTP) insurance – which you legally need to drive – so you don’t let any policies lapse.

If you’re selling your car, cancel your comprehensive cover once the sale has officially been signed and sealed. If you pay your premium annually and still have time remaining on your policy period, you may get a portion of it refunded (but there may also be early cancellation fees).

If you’ve decided you don’t want to stick with a policy just after purchasing it, you can usually cancel without any repercussions within the cooling-off period (generally 14-21 days). Making a switch to a different insurance company or policy level at renewal time could cut out any dramas and fees, just make sure you have a new policy in place before cancelling the old one.

Even without incurring much damage, a vehicle’s value decreases over time. So, you may get to a stage where your car’s value no longer justifies the heftier price tag of comprehensive cover. This could be a good time to reassess and see if more affordable third party property cover might suit your wheels better.