how it works
the method, in full.
No black box. Here is exactly what the tool compares and why each comparison earns its place.
1. your premium against your own premium
This is the heart of it, and it needs no market data at all — just your figure from this year and last. We compare the movement against two reference points: headline inflation (3.8% over the 12 months to June 2026) and what the insurance market as a whole did over the same period.
An increase at or below inflation is a fair outcome. An increase in line with the market is defensible. An increase well ahead of the market, with no change to your cover and no claims, is the pattern worth challenging.
2. how long you have stayed
Price walking compounds. Australian home insurance premiums rose roughly 51% over five years, and small annual increases stack quietly on top of each other. The gap between a long-standing customer’s renewal and a new customer’s quote for identical cover is usually widest around the five-year mark, because insurers reserve their sharpest pricing for acquisition.
3. your premium against the market
A secondary check, and we are careful with it. Published averages disagree with each other because they sample differently, so where they do we show the range rather than pick one. Being above average is not proof of anything — your postcode, building age and sum insured all legitimately move the number. It is a prompt to look closer, not a verdict.
4. who actually underwrites you
Then the practical part: which insurers are worth your time. We map your brand to its underwriting group and rule that whole group out of your shortlist, because quoting siblings of your current insurer is not a comparison. What is left is a genuine spread.
5. what to say
Finally a script for the retention call. Most people never make it, and it is often the highest-return three minutes available — provided you have a real competing quote in hand when you dial.
common questions
- Why does last year’s premium matter so much?
- Because it is the only number that isolates what your insurer did to you specifically. Market averages tell you what is happening to everyone. Your own two numbers, side by side, tell you whether you are being charged for staying put.
- Is a big increase always price walking?
- No. Premiums genuinely rise after a claim, after a reassessment of flood or bushfire risk in your area, when your sum insured is indexed, or when reinsurance costs move. The signature of price walking is an increase noticeably ahead of the market with none of those things having changed.
- Why not just get quotes from ten insurers?
- Because a lot of them are the same insurer. Australian retail insurance is concentrated: a handful of underwriting groups sit behind dozens of consumer brands. Three quotes from one group tells you very little. One quote from each of three groups tells you a lot.
- Should I switch or should I call?
- Call first, but only once you hold a real competing quote. Retention teams price against a genuine alternative. Without one you are asking a favour; with one you are presenting a business case.