RACQ insurance diary

Tag: cost of insurance

  • Our RACQ home and contents insurance policy

    Our RACQ home and contents insurance policy is probably different to most in that we lived on acreage (5 acres) and had two houses and large shed.  All of this was specified at the time.  RACQ were well aware what they were insuring was not a standard residential home and not a standard contents arrangement.  We went so far as to make them note our shed on the policy.  My mothers’ contents were noted separately.

    We always assumed our ‘acreage/multiple structures situation‘ was why we were paying approx. $5k per annum for our policy.  By nearly anyone’s measure that’s a lot of money.

    Honestly, we now think this is why we have had such a horrible time with RACQ.  It seems to us that at no stage have they ever really been able to cope with the ‘acreage / multiple structure situation‘.  We don’t believe they have shown an appropriate amount of respect for the condition of our acreage or our safe access or security, and that’s probably because it doesn’t even rate as a concern to them.  We guess they look at our file and think – residential property.  People who live on acreage know, that is not the case.  Acreage needs love and attention.

    We’ve had claims running with RACQ for more than two years as of 28 January 2026 and during that time we really believe they have failed to respect our property/grounds/acreage and allowed our homes and property to fall into a near derelict state.  Now covered in noxious weeds, spread by an RACQ contractor, new related issues are developing on the regular.

    After more than 2 years we are not able to live at our property, and our absence has certainly not helped many of our issues.

    We keep trying to tell RACQ what is going on and they keep ignoring us.  There have been so many issues and so many attempts by us to avoid the next damaging issue and so many times RACQ have just ignored us.  There have been so many AFCA complaints.  (God bless AFCA.)

    When we took out our RACQ home and contents insurance policy we did so on the phone with my mother.  She’s in her 70’s and doesn’t handle admin’ well.

    We found out when we went to make our first claim that RACQ had changed our policy only a matter of weeks after inception and in some way (we still don’t really understand what happened here) only advised our mother.  RACQ didn’t tell us that they had removed contents cover from our house.  We complained to RACQ and AFCA about this and ultimately, RACQ reinstated our contents cover.  This was a very stressful time for us but also meant (in our observation) that RACQ delayed works on our house.  About an inch of water was left on the ground floor, interior, of our Queenslander home for some weeks, whilst our complaint re contents insurance was dealt with.  In our opinion, this ultimately resulted in our first mould outbreak and our home being reduced to studs on the ground floor.

    At this date (28.01.26) we couldn’t tell you what happened to all our contents that were located on the ground floor.  Some was certainly thrown out without manifesting, some most likely stolen, and maybe some could be in storage.  We don’t know about the storage and we don’t know about the state of items that might be in storage.  RACQ have never adequately responded to our contents and storage concerns.  There have been so many emails and a huge AFCA submission – but still nothing acceptable.

    RACQ were / are responsible for all of our contents.  Their contractors assured us they could sort through all our possessions and manifest everything.  Throw out what could not be saved and restore what could be saved.  Anything that could be restored would then be moved to storage.

    That’s not what happened though.

  • RACQ home insurance – the first insured event …

    25 December 2023 – a Tornado on the Gold Coast and we are covered with RACQ home insurance???

    On 25 December 2023 the Gold Coast Hinterland located, Queensland, Australia, experienced a tornado like event. (For visitors who aren’t local, we don’t do tornados. On the Gold Coast we rarely even do cyclones but to be fair, we often experience freaky storms, and they can get funky.)

    In Australia, especially Queensland, Home insurance matters. It’s expensive to insure your home properly, including flood, but you don’t F around. You pay the money, so when sh*t goes down, your life doesn’t turn into a total nightmare.  Our property was insured with RACQ home insurance when the tornado hit.

    As at February 2026, RACQ advertise on their website,

    “RACQ’s home insurance provides the cost of repair or replacement of your house when things go wrong.”

    At the time we took out our RACQ home insurance policy, we are sure they were talking about “peace of mind”.

    A lot of Queenslanders are insured with RACQ home insurance. At the time we took out our policy they were not the cheapest option by any means, but we thought, the most comprehensive home insurance provider with a half-way decent reputation. (The annual premium for our RACQ home insurance policy was more than $5k (per annum) at the time of our first claim.)

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    When the tornado happened, xmas day 2023, our home was one of a number effected in our area. Trees were snapped in half or pulled out of the ground. Power was down. A lot of people lost roofs. Some families lost everything.

    To be fair, we were actually very fortunate. We had some tree issues and relatively minor damage to two roofs, on our home – a Queenslander, and on our motor-home. We believe a large tree had fallen on the corner of our homes’ roof and landed on an external staircase. (We lived on a 5 acre property and had two houses and one motor home that we used for accommodation, one house was a Queenslander which we renovated, loved and lived in, and a secondary, new dwelling created for our mother.)

    Our Mum was home at the time of the tornado, solo. We were overseas on holiday. (It was actually the first time we had not taken her on holidays since Michael passed away, and the tornado scared the hell out of her. Mum has seen wild weather before but describes this tornado event as something she never wants to experience again. She speaks specifically of the noise being other worldly.)