The trick to avoid getting ripped off on car insurance? Drive a hard bargain

August 16, 2026 — 3:00am

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For better or worse, everyone remembers their first car. Mine, for example, was a 2008 Renault that my car-savvy friend begged me not to purchase, cost me thousands in expensive repairs, drove terribly, and I sold for the princely sum of $900 after I finally got fed up with it. Who could have possibly foreseen it?

To add additional insult to injury, it was absolutely ridiculously expensive to insure, possibly because it was French and possibly because I was a naive 24-year-old. But paying well over $1000 a year to insure a car that was known for its concerning rattling noises was not something I enjoyed doing.

Thankfully, you live and learn, and now I have a nice car that doesn’t rattle. But what hasn’t changed is how much I’m paying for insurance, and it seems like I’m not alone.

This week, corporate regulator ASIC said it was cracking down on car insurance premiums, which have climbed almost 50 per cent since 2019 without any clear explanation as to why, with insurers relying on generic explanations hidden in supplementary documents.

“Consumers should not........

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