Households are choosing food over insurance cover despite financial planners warning of big risks

Some home owners are opting out of expensive house insurance. (ABC News: Peter Drought)

There is mounting evidence that basic forms of insurance — financial products once deemed essential — are becoming unaffordable for many Australians as the cost-of-living crisis deepens.

Anna from Mitcham, Victoria, who requested her surname wasn’t published, went to the doctor a few months ago with a health complaint. The GP referred the 51-year-old to three separate specialists, but she can’t afford to see any of them.

“I’ve got to wait until we’ve got the financial space to follow through on one of those,” Anna said.

She now spends close to $900 a month on all insurance costs.

Paying insurance is becoming unaffordable so she’s considering cancelling her health insurance policy.

“I think our [health] insurance has probably gone up – it feels like it’s gone up $100 a month, but it also feels like everything has gone up in the past couple of years to double.”

This week’s official inflation data show insurance prices rising over 16 per cent annually — which is the sharpest increase since 2001.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics says higher reinsurance and natural disaster and claims costs continue to drive higher premiums for house, home contents and motor vehicle insurance.

The co-CEO of Financial Counselling Australia, Peter Gartlan, says home insurance, in particular, is now out of reach for many Australians.

“Financial counsellors are reporting that many of their clients they are assisting now see home insurance as a luxury,” he says.

“It is extraordinary.

“In New South Wales, as an example, financial counsellors there are estimating that well over half of their clients would not have any form of household insurance.

“And furthermore, those financial counsellors working in northern New South Wales are saying nearly all of their clients do not now have any form of home insurance,” Mr Gartlan said.

Australians running the risk of no insurance

The problem of course is that without insurance many Australian households face being wiped out financially by an unexpected event — perhaps a serious motor vehicle accident.

Financial planner Simon Cutler says despite warning his clients of the risks, they insist on cancelling their policies to help put food on the table.

“And clients are sitting there and [saying], ‘Alright, what’s more important, putting food on the table in the short-term or paying out a cost that we may not need to call upon at some point in time?'” Mr Cutler said.

“Clients come in and they’re frustrated.

“They say, ‘Hey Simon, you’ve put us with this company, we’ve been happy along the journey, the company has been great, the premiums have been reasonable,’ and they’re sitting there going, ‘cancel it’.

“‘If they’re going to do this to me, cancel my cover!'”

“And you sit there and explain how important it is to protect yourself and protect your family.

“So clients are stuck in an, ‘I need to keep what I had’, ‘I got medically underwritten back here, but I can’t afford it anymore’,” Mr Cutler said.

Mr Cutler says more younger Australians are rejecting the concept of insurance entirely and, instead, opting for crowdfunding platforms like GoFundMe when disaster strikes.

“It’s quite topical amongst us advisors because we’re running around seeing more people without cover at a time when debt levels are so high that we candidly say, ‘What are people doing in this situation?’ And we’ve said we’re the GoFundMe generation now.

“It shouldn’t be [like] that.

“People should be able to afford some form of cover in the marketplace,” he said.

Financial counsellors also question the validity of the sharp increases in some premiums.

The ABC asked the Insurance Council of Australia to justify the 16.4 per cent annual increase in the overall cost of insurance for the March quarter.

A spokesperson told The World Today: “Wherever you live in Australia – whether you’re directly exposed to extreme weather impacts or not – premium prices are rising because of the escalating costs of natural disasters, the growing value of our assets making them more costly to replace, inflation driving up building and vehicle repair costs, and the increasing cost of capital for insurers.”