Allrisk Insurance

Home Warranty insurance is a statutory insurance covering the risk of the builder going bankrupt (or dying, disappearing, or refusing to comply with a court order) AND either leaving a project incomplete or failing to fix defects in the home.

That's it. If there's a defect in the construction of your home, your first port of call is the builder; and only if the builder has disappeared or refuses to pay, can you call upon the statutory insurance.

Same for Owner Builders

It's the exact same situation for owner builders - if there's a defect in the home, you'll be expected to fix the defect, at least within the statutory warranty period (which varies by State and Territory of Australia).

When you think about it, having owner builders insure against the risk of bankruptcy is a pretty long bow to draw - it's exceedingly rare for an owner builder to be bankrupt, and so the insurance wouldn't often be used.

Only required in VIC and WA

Accordingly, most states and territories of Australia have removed the insurance requirement for owner builders (in NSW effective January 2015), and we can only hope that the requirement will be relaxed in the remaining two states at some point too.

Whether or not you have a legal requirement to hold the insurance, the basic point remains that the insurance only applies when the owner-builder dies, disappears, becomes bankrupt, or refuses to comply with a court judgment. Outside of those circumstances, separate "home warranty" insurance doesn't provide any protection to owner builders.

I'm in VIC or WA, how do I get a quote?

In VIC, the VMIA released a notice of the providers here:

https://www.dbi.vmia.vic.gov.au/latest-news" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">https://www.dbi.vmia.vic.gov.au/latest-news node name/announcement-2

In WA, we can provide indications from QBE Insurance here:

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