How we compare car insurance
About CHOICE car insurance comparisons
On this page:
- How often we review car insurance
- How we choose which insurers to compare
- How we determine recommended policies
- How we calculate the Price score
- How we calculate the Cover score
- Why we don't include the claims experience or customer satisfaction in our scoring
CHOICE reviews comprehensive car insurance policies on a regular basis to provide you with up-to-date information about policy cover and pricing.
We assign scores for pricing (based on thousands of online quotes) and policy coverage (looking at dozens of different product cover inclusions and limits). These scores are combined to calculate the CHOICE Expert Rating, a percentage score that reflects a policy’s level of cover and value for money.
How often we review car insurance
CHOICE reviews car insurance four times a year, when we receive a new batch of pricing data from our provider.
How we choose which insurers to compare
CHOICE car insurance comparison at a glance.
- 16 underwriters
- 53 insurers
- 69 policies
- 74 policy cover dimensions assessed
The insurers we choose to review cover the majority of the car insurance market in Australia and range from brands underwritten by the biggest insurance agencies to smaller local insurers and new entrants to the market.
To be included in a CHOICE car insurance review, an insurance product must be available directly to the public. We do not include products targeting more niche car markets such as vintage and classic cars.
We compare car insurance policies issued by the following insurers. If they sell insurance under more than one brand name, these are listed in parentheses.
Big four car insurers
- Allianz (Allianz, Australian Unity, Bank of Melbourne, BankSA, Beyond Bank, COTA, Great Southern Bank, HSBC, Hume Bank, Kogan, NAB, National Seniors, Over Fifty, RAA, St.George, TIO, Westpac)
- IAG (AANT, ANZ, Bendigo Bank, NRMA, People First Bank, RACV, ROLLiN’. IAG also owns RACQ Insurance, which issues Aldi, Bank Australia, BOQ and RACQ.)
- QBE
- Suncorp (AAMI, Apia, Bingle, GIO, Suncorp)
Newer entrants and smaller insurers
- Auto&General (Budget Direct, Coles, ING, Ozicare, Qantas, Virgin Money)
- Hollard (AHM, Australian Seniors, Bupa, CBA, Everyday Insurance, Huddle, Real Insurance)
- Pacific International (PD Insurance)
- TrueCover
- Virginia Surety (Stella)
- Youi
State motoring group car insurers
- RAC
- RACT
How we calculate the CHOICE expert rating
The CHOICE Expert Rating is an overall score out of 100. It is made up of the cover score (60%) and a national price score (40%).
How we determine recommended policies
Policy recommendations are made on the basis of the CHOICE Expert Rating. To be recommended, a policy must have pricing data available and have a CHOICE Expert Rating at or above a set score which is higher than the average of all the policies we looked at.
Recommendations are made on a general basis and do not take into account any individual’s objectives, financial situation, or needs. Consider the appropriateness of a recommendation before acting on it and review the policy’s Product Disclosure Statement (PDS) and other documents.
How we obtain pricing data
We obtain pricing data from a third-party pricing provider that collects and sells its data to the insurance industry. If an insurer doesn’t participate in the quote collection program, we can’t compare them on price. This means we cannot calculate a CHOICE Expert Rating on the product, or recommend it.
How we collect policy cover data
The terms and conditions of a car insurance policy are detailed in one or more disclosure documents available from the insurer. The key sources of information we use to collect product cover data include:
- Product Disclosure Statements (PDS), as well as any supplementary PDSs issued when the insurer makes product changes
- Additional Information Guides (also called Premium, Excess and Discount guides)
- the insurer’s website (including quote forms, where undisclosed sublimits are often hidden).
Whenever an insurer issues a new PDS, our insurance experts compare it to the old one and update the answers to a product feature questionnaire. Our database churns the answers and produces our comparison table. To make sure we haven’t got anything wrong, our in-house verification team double-checks any big changes or additions. For big updates we’ll also send a draft of the report to insurers for them suggest corrections.
How we calculate the Price score
Our car insurance reviews display the results of our price comparisons in two ways: a price rating and a price score.
Price rating
A price rating is a score out of five, indicating how expensive a policy is in a state or territory, relative to others in our pricing dataset. In our reviews, the price rating is represented in dollar signs. A rating of “$” indicates a very cheap policy (on average), while “$$$$$” is very expensive. Price ratings are calculated at the state and territory level.
Price score
The price score is a score out of 100, indicating how expensive a policy is across all the markets it’s available in. It contributes to the CHOICE Expert Rating, but should be used with caution when deciding which policy to buy. The reason for this is that car insurance is not always consistently priced across different states and territories.
An insurer that’s cheap in one area might be very expensive in another, and a national price score doesn’t capture those variations – look at the price ratings instead to find out how well-priced the policy is for your specific region.
Before we compare quotes we apply an “excess standardisation” method. This adjusts the quotes to account for differences in default excess between insurers. This means policies with a lower default excess aren’t penalised (lower excess usually means higher premium).
The price comparison begins by comparing individual quotes against others in the same customer profile sample. Quotes are assigned a score of 0 (most expensive) to 100 (least expensive). We repeat this process, adjusting premiums to account for pay-by-the-month fees charged by some insurers. In this way, half the Price score is based on annual premiums, half on monthly premiums.
We then calculate the policy’s average Quote score per market. The Price rating is this average divided by 20 (rounded up). We also calculate the national Price score, which is the average Quote score across all markets.
How we calculate the Cover score
To calculate the overall cover score for each policy we look at what the policy covers, as well as the limits and conditions of these benefits. We calculate a range of sub-scores, called Feature Component scores. Component scores are where we really get into the detail about what the product actually covers.
For example, we check if the policy covers you to choose your own repairer or gives you the choice between agreed and market value. We also look at what additional excesses excesses apply, and the extra benefits available with the policy.
For comprehensive car insurance, we calculate 74 Component scores. Every data point that contributes to a Component score is included in the comparison table.
Although an insurance policy can be very complicated, we assess each feature on similar criteria, if they’re relevant to the feature. Each Component score is one of the following types.
Feature cover: Does the policy cover this feature? If a feature is part of the default cover, the policy scores 100. If it’s an optional extra, then the score is 50.
Category limits: What is the overall benefit limit for this feature? Full points are awarded for cover that is up to the “reasonable cost”, meaning it doesn’t have a set limit. The lowest benefit in the sample scores 0, while the highest scores 100. Penalties are then applied, as described below.
Time limits: Some features have a time limit, rather than a benefit limit. Examples include emergency accommodation and rental car cover. Full points are awarded for policies with no time limit, while the shortest limit in the sample scores 0.
Item cover: What things are included or excluded under this feature? For example, under rental car cover some policies explicitly state they will cover the costs of a similar size, make or model car to yours. Others will only cover the cost of a compact car.
In some circumstances a penalty is applied to a Component score. Each penalty reduces the Component score by 5%.
Sublimits versus no sublimits: If the sample contains a benefit with no sublimit (i.e. cover is up to the sum insured, “replacement cost” or “reasonable cost”), all policies with a sublimit will have a penalty applied. The intention of this penalty is to assess product complexity: a product with many sublimits, which the insured is required to keep abreast of, will have its score penalised across many features. This penalty is used in scores for category limits and time limits.
Summary of features assessed
Each cover feature is grouped into one of eight sections. Each section has its own weighting relative to the total cover score.
- Incident cover: 5%
- Purchasing: 10%
- Excesses: 15%
- Claiming: 20%
- Additional features: 50%
| Section | Feature | Weighting |
|---|---|---|
| Incident cover | Cover for accidental collision, fire, theft and flood | 3% |
| Incident cover | Legal liability | 2% |
| Purchasing | Market value or agreed value available | 9% |
| Purchasing | Cooling off period | 1% |
| Excesses | Additional excesses | 10% |
| Excesses | Reduced excess for glass claims | 5% |
| Claiming | Choice of repairer | 9% |
| Claiming | Replacement parts policy | 7.5% |
| Claiming | Out-of-hours claim methods | 2.5% |
| Claiming | Guarantee on authorised repairs | 1% |
| Additional features | New car replacement | 10% |
| Additional features | Accommodation and transport when away from home | 6% |
| Additional features | Hire car after any incident | 5% |
| Additional features | Hire car after a not at fault incident | 5% |
| Additional features | Hire car after theft | 5% |
| Additional features | Personal property | 5% |
| Additional features | Child seats | 2% |
| Additional features | Emergency repairs | 2% |
| Additional features | Roadside assistance | 2% |
| Additional features | Lock and key replacement after key theft | 2% |
| Additional features | Towing | 2% |
| Additional features | Trailers and caravans | 2% |
| Additional features | Transport costs | 2% |
Why we don’t include the claims experience or customer satisfaction in our scoring
The reason for this is because there isn’t any reliable data for either of these metrics. Financial regulators are in the process of developing a data collection process for claims handling. When this data begins to be published, we’ll know things like what percentage of claims are accepted, and how long on average an insurer takes to settle a claim.
The Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA) publishes a dashboard summarising the complaints they receive. However, the data is not easily extracted, and we have concerns that the tool doesn’t give enough information about an insurer’s market share for us to compare them on a like-for-like basis.
In 2025 we conducted a nationally representative satisfaction survey for car insurance customers, looking at things like the claiming experience and what makes people loyal to their insurer. In our comparison we list the percentage of respondents who rated their experience with their home insurer as “above average” or “excellent” as the satisfaction score.
Not every insurer has this score, because it’s difficult to get a large enough sample size for small insurers. As a result, we can’t include this score in the CHOICE Expert Rating, but it’s still worth looking at if you’re in the market for a new policy.
