Victoria (VIC)
Victoria took the levy off premiums in 2013, and it shows.
Victoria moved fire services funding from insurance premiums to council rates after the 2009 Royal Commission. A Victorian property premium is structurally cheaper than the identical risk in New South Wales, and the difference is policy, not underwriting.
What is different about insuring in Victoria
Until 2013 Victoria funded its fire services through a levy on insurance premiums, exactly as New South Wales still does. The 2009 Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission found that this discouraged people from insuring, and that under-insurance made recovery from Black Saturday materially harder. The levy moved to council rates as the Fire Services Property Levy. It is the single clearest example in Australia of a government changing insurance policy because of a disaster.
The practical consequence is that a Victorian home premium does not carry an insurance levy. You pay the base premium, GST at 10 per cent, and stamp duty at 10 per cent, and that is it. The same house in Sydney would carry roughly 18 per cent more before duty is applied.
What Victoria does have is the most complicated weather in the country. A summer day in Melbourne can produce a 40 degree northerly, a wind change in the late afternoon and hail before dark. That combination is exactly what makes bushfire behaviour in Victoria so difficult to predict, and it is why we rate bushfire here on aspect and slope rather than on postcode alone.
What you pay on top of the premium
- Insurance levy
- NoneFire services are funded through the Fire Services Property Levy on council rates
- Stamp duty
- 10%On general insurance, applied to the premium plus GST
- GST
- 10%Applied to the base premium
- CTP (TAC charge)
- With regoCollected by VicRoads on your registration renewal. No insurer to choose
The risks we rate for in VIC
Bushfire
The Dandenongs, the Otways, Gippsland, the Macedon Ranges and the Grampians. Victoria rates on slope, aspect and vegetation because the wind change is what does the damage.
Hail
Melbourne hail arrives fast and unpredictably. The January 2020 storm crossed the city in under an hour and produced tens of thousands of vehicle claims.
Storm and wind
The June 2021 storms took out power across the Dandenongs for more than a week. Fallen trees and extended loss of supply are the recurring Victorian pattern.
Riverine flood
The Maribyrnong, the Goulburn, the Loddon and the Campaspe. The October 2022 flood reset flood mapping across northern and western Victoria.
In Victoria there is nothing to shop for, and that is deliberate.
Victorian Compulsory Third Party cover is the TAC charge, collected by VicRoads as a line on your registration renewal. The Transport Accident Commission is a single state scheme and there are no competing insurers, so there is no price to compare and no Green Slip to buy separately.
The TAC scheme is no-fault, which means benefits are available regardless of who caused the accident. That is a meaningful difference from the fault-based elements of some other state schemes, and it is why Victorians rarely think about CTP at all.
The TAC charge covers injury to people. It covers no property, including your own car. Comprehensive, third party property damage and third party fire and theft are what cover property, and those come from us.
Where our VIC customers are
| Region | Postcodes | What drives the rating |
|---|---|---|
| Inner Melbourne | 3000 to 3068 | High density, high contents values, and older terrace construction with heritage overlays that raise rebuild cost. |
| Eastern suburbs and the Dandenongs | 3130 to 3160 | Bushfire prone land through the ranges, plus mature trees and extended power outages after wind events. |
| Mornington Peninsula | 3910 to 3944 | Coastal exposure, bushfire on the peninsula ridge, and a high proportion of holiday properties left unoccupied. |
| Geelong and the Surf Coast | 3212 to 3233 | Storm and wind off Bass Strait, coastal erosion, and Otways bushfire exposure to the west. |
| Ballarat and the Central Highlands | 3350 to 3377 | Hard frost, hail, and bushfire. Older weatherboard housing stock raises rebuild cost per square metre. |
| Northern Victoria | 3550 to 3644 | Riverine flood on the Goulburn, Loddon and Campaspe systems, remapped after October 2022. |
A VIC claim, settled
Tenant left the place wrecked and eleven weeks behind. The loss of rent and the malicious damage were handled as one claim, which is not how it went with my last insurer.
VIC questions
Why does my Victorian premium not include a fire services levy?
Because Victoria abolished the insurance based levy in 2013 and replaced it with the Fire Services Property Levy, which is collected with your council rates. You still pay for fire services, just not through your insurance premium. This was a direct recommendation of the 2009 Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission, which found the old arrangement discouraged people from insuring at all.
Do I need to do anything about CTP when I renew my rego?
No. The TAC charge is already on your VicRoads renewal notice and it is collected automatically. There is no separate purchase, no insurer to nominate and no comparison to make. If you are moving to Victoria from New South Wales, note that you will no longer buy a Green Slip separately.
How do you rate bushfire risk in the Dandenongs?
On slope, aspect, vegetation type and distance to unmanaged vegetation, not on postcode. A house on a north facing slope below dense forest is a materially different risk from one two streets away on a cleared ridge, and pricing them identically would be lazy. If you have completed vegetation management or built to a bushfire attack level standard, tell us, because it changes the number.
I own a holiday house on the Peninsula. Does the unoccupied exclusion catch me?
Only if it is unoccupied for more than 90 consecutive days without telling us. A house used most weekends is not unoccupied. If it will sit empty over winter, ring us and we will note it, which costs a small additional excess and avoids the argument entirely.
Was my address remapped after the October 2022 flood?
Possibly. Flood mapping through northern and western Victoria was substantially revised after that event, and some addresses moved into or out of a mapped flood extent. Flood is included as standard on our policies either way, but the rating reflects the current mapping. If your premium moved noticeably at renewal, that is usually why, and the renewal notice will say so.
This advice is general only and does not take into account your objectives, financial situation or needs. Before acting on it, consider whether it is appropriate for you. Consider the PDS and TMD before deciding whether a product is right for you.
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Eight questions and you will see the premium, the excess and the main exclusions on one screen. All premiums shown are in Australian dollars and include GST and stamp duty, plus the NSW Emergency Services Levy or the Tasmanian Fire Service Contribution where they apply.
Consider the PDS and TMD before deciding. Premiums include GST and stamp duty.