The best and cheapest car insurers in every state
If you rely on your car, like many Australians, you should consider insuring it with a comprehensive policy. Unlike CTP or basic insurance, comprehensive car insurance will cover repairs to your own car if it’s damaged in a car accident, by fire, flood, thieves or even a rogue shopping trolley. This cover doesn’t come cheap, however, with premiums having risen 42% since 2019.
On this page:
- How does car insurance work?
- How much does car insurance cost?
- How to choose the right car insurance policy
With so many factors affecting the cost of your policy – like mileage, postcode, age of drivers, and driving history – it’s difficult to know whether you’re being offered a good deal.
We include a national price rating in our car insurance analysis to assess value for money but, in this article, we analyse prices state by state to find the cheapest car insurance in each location, then use this information to reveal the best value insurance policies across the country.
How does car insurance work?
There are three types of car insurance. Comprehensive insurance is the most extensive cover. In addition to paying for damage you may cause to other cars or property, it covers your car for theft and damage caused by accidents, natural disasters and vandalism. It may also cover things like personal property inside the vehicle and trailers, as well as providing payments towards accommodation if you have an accident during a road trip and covering the cost of replacing your keys after theft. Comprehensive insurance is the type of policy we’ve analysed prices for here.
CTP stands for compulsory third party and is often included with your registration. It covers injuries to people if you have an accident. How you buy CTP insurance and what it covers varies from state to state.
There’s also third party property or basic insurance, which covers damage to other people’s vehicles or property if you’re involved in an accident. Sometimes this is referred to as bomb insurance, because it’s the type of cover you’d buy if you’re driving a an old run-down car but want insurance in case you hit someone else’s Porsche. Third party, fire and theft policies cover a bit more.
How much does car insurance cost?
With the cost of insurance continuing to increase, it’s important to make sure you’re only insured for what you need, and for the best price possible. And comprehensive car insurance is no exception. We crunched the numbers to see how much Australians are paying for home and contents insurance across the country.
Average premium by state
ACT $1484
NSW $1995
NT $1850
Qld $1570
SA $1545
Tas $1278
Vic $2131
WA $1536
Average annual premiums for comprehensive car insurance policies in each state. Based on thousands of market representative quotes for 69 different products. Quotes per state ranged from up to 92 quotes per product in the ACT to almost 3000 per product in Queensland collected in July 2025.
Cheapest insurers by state
In the current economic climate, price is a big consideration when choosing anything, that’s why we’ve revealed the cheapest insurers in each state.
You can read about the cover details of these policies in our car insurance comparison and see whether any of these policies are right for you. These policies don’t necessarily provide the best cover, however, so it’s important to also read the product disclosure statement (PDS) before making the switch.
We used the same method to calculate price scores we use in our comparison, but limited the quotes by state. We looked at over 56 products, with the number of quotes per product ranging from up to 37 in ACT to over 1500 in Queensland.
We reveal the best value policies further down, exclusively for CHOICE members. If you’d like to make sure you’re getting the best value for your dollar, sign up to Join CHOICE, or if you’re already a member log in to see the full results.
Hume Bank Comprehensive* – Price score for ACT: 90%
GIO Comprehensive – Price score for ACT: 86%
Apia Car Advantage – Price score for ACT: 85%
NAB Comprehensive – Price score for ACT: 85%
Kogan Comprehensive – Price score for ACT: 85%
The average prices for the products above range from $820 to $1210. While these are the cheapest policies on the whole, insurance premiums vary according to many factors including sum insured, excess and risk profiles, so they may not necessarily be the cheapest for you.
*Identical policy (cover and prices) available through Great Southern Bank
AAMI Comprehensive – Price score for NSW: 83%
Bingle Comprehensive – Price score for NSW: 82%
Apia Car Advantage – Price score for NSW: 80%
The average price for the products above range from $1210 to $1515. While these are the cheapest policies on the whole, insurance premiums vary according to many factors including sum insured, excess and risk profiles, so they may not necessarily be the cheapest for you.
Westpac Comprehensive* – Price score for NT: 97%
Hume Bank Comprehensive** – Price score for NT: 96%
Kogan Comprehensive – Price score for NT: 92%
National Seniors Comprehensive – Price score for NT: 91%
NAB Comprehensive – Price score for NT: 89%
The average prices for the products above range from $1355 to $1520. While these are the cheapest policies on the whole, insurance premiums vary according to many factors including sum insured, excess and risk profiles, so they may not necessarily be the cheapest for you.
*Identical policy (cover and price) available through St George, Bank of Melbourne and BankSA.
**Identical policy (cover and price) available through Great Southern Bank.
Apia Car Advantage – Price score for Qld: 80%
Bingle Comprehensive – Price score for Qld: 79%
AAMI Comprehensive – Price score for Qld: 77%
The average prices for the products above range from $1010 to $1320. While these are the cheapest policies on the whole, insurance premiums vary according to many factors including sum insured, excess and risk profiles, so they may not necessarily be the cheapest for you.
Hume Bank Comprehensive* – Price score for SA: 83%
Bingle Comprehensive – Price score for SA: 83%
AAMI Comprehensive – Price score for SA: 81%
Apia Car Advantage – Price score for SA: 78%
The average prices for the products above range from $915 to $1280. While these are the cheapest policies on the whole, insurance premiums vary according to many factors including sum insured, excess and risk profiles, so they may not necessarily be the cheapest for you.
*Identical policy (cover and price) available through Great Southern Bank
Hume Bank Comprehensive* – Price score for Tas: 86%
Westpac Comprehensive** – Price score for Tas: 86%
Apia Car Advantage – Price score for Tas: 84%
Kogan Comprehensive – Price score for Tas: 80%
The average prices for the products above range from $795 to $1100. While these are the cheapest policies on the whole, insurance premiums vary according to many factors including sum insured, excess and risk profiles, so they may not necessarily be the cheapest for you.
*Identical policy (cover and price) available through Great Southern Bank
**Identical policy (cover and price) available through St George, Bank of Melbourne and Bank SA
Apia Car Advantage – Price score for VIC: 88%
AAMI Comprehensive – Price score for VIC: 84%
Bingle Comprehensive – Price score for VIC: 78%
The average prices for the products above range from $1050 to $1570. While these are the cheapest policies on the whole, insurance premiums vary according to many factors including sum insured, excess and risk profiles, so they may not necessarily be the cheapest for you.
Apia Car Advantage – Price score for WA: 87%
Hume Bank Comprehensive – Price score for WA: 81%
AAMI Comprehensive – Price score for WA: 81%
CBA Comprehensive – Price score for WA: 81%
The average prices for the products above range from $913 to $1375. While these are the cheapest policies on the whole, insurance premiums vary according to many factors including sum insured, excess and risk profiles, so they may not necessarily be the cheapest for you.
*Identical policy (cover and prices) available through Great Southern Bank
How to choose the right car insurance policy
It’s good to know which policy is the cheapest, but if you want real value for money, you also need to look at what’s covered by each policy. To do this yourself, you’ll need to go through the policy documents for each product and compare the points of coverage that are important to you. Or you could use our Cover score.
We look at how insurers cover 74 different things, and allocate points for everything, from whether the policy allows your choice of repairer and how much they provide for legal liability to whether they’ll pay to replace child seats or for a hire car after an at-fault accident. We then convert this to a percentage so you can easily compare the level of cover between one policy and another.
To find out which is the best value comprehensive car insurance in your state, log in to keep reading below, or consider becoming a CHOICE member and get access to all our reviews.
