ASIC reviewed eight car insurance brands with 72 per cent of the market and none explains its pricing

Australia's corporate regulator has put a number on a complaint drivers have been making for years. On 11 August 2026 the Australian Securities and Investments Commission released report 838, Road testing transparency in car insurance premiums, alongside media release 26-189MR. It examined eight motor insurance brands sold by five insurers that together write about 72 per cent of the market, and found that not one of them explained, in the documents a customer actually receives, the key factors that determined the price or why it had changed since last year.

The insurers reviewed were AAI Limited, whose brands include AAMI and Suncorp Insurance, Allianz Australia Insurance, which also underwrites Territory Insurance Office, Insurance Australia Group, whose brands include NRMA Insurance and RACV Insurance, RAC Insurance in Western Australia, and Youi. ASIC looked at quote and renewal documents and paired that review with consumer research commissioned in January 2026 covering more than 2,000 Australians.

The price context is the reason the review happened. ASIC put the increase in motor insurance premiums at 8 per cent in the 12 months to July 2025, roughly double the consumer price index over the same period, and at more than 42 per cent between 2019 and 2024. For comparison, the Australian Bureau of Statistics reported on 29 July 2026 that headline inflation was running at 3.8 per cent in the year to June 2026, with the insurance and financial services group up 3.2 per cent.

The disclosure findings are specific rather than atmospheric. ASIC commissioner Alan Kirkland said most insurers gave "only generic explanations in supplementary documents, with some providing no explanations at all", and that this "fails to meet the needs of customers trying to understand the reasons for significant price increases". Seventy three per cent of consumers surveyed could recall only a generic reason for a price rise. None of the eight brands set out a clear year to year comparison of what had changed in the customer's own premium.

The behavioural findings explain why that matters commercially. Sixty seven per cent of consumers renew with the same insurer, 40 per cent neither contact their insurer nor compare quotes before renewing, and 68 per cent do not contact their insurer about an increase. Of the minority who do pick up the phone, 31 per cent obtain a lower premium without reducing their cover. That is the single most actionable figure in the report: roughly one in three people who ask, get something. Kirkland's gloss was that "it pays to ask", but that "not everyone has the time, confidence or capability to negotiate with their insurer".

ASIC also examined the cost of paying monthly. It found a difference of 10 to 20 per cent between paying annually and paying by instalments, and that 54 per cent of consumers were unaware such a gap existed or missed it in the documents. Kirkland said "a cost saving of 20% can go a long way" and that there was "no excuse why some insurers cannot communicate such a basic benefit to customers".

On causes, the report and the coverage of it point to claims costs rather than margin. Motor claims costs are up 47 per cent since 2020 and building costs 44 per cent since 2022. Vehicle theft has surged in Victoria, where the car theft bill reached 243 million dollars in 2025, more than the rest of the country combined. The Insurance Council of Australia, the industry's own body, said premiums had been under pressure from "escalating extreme weather costs, insurance-linked taxes, and rising repair and vehicle parts costs", and that "this is a highly competitive market" in which customers should talk to their insurer and shop around at renewal. That is a claim an industry association makes about its own members, and ASIC's finding is not that the increases are unjustified. It is that customers are not told what is behind them.

What happens next is the test. ASIC has said it expects insurers to improve quote and renewal documents so premium information is clearer, and Kirkland said the regulator "will take enforcement action where disclosures about insurance premiums are inaccurate or misleading". It has not published a deadline for those changes, has not said which of the eight brands were the worst performers, and has not announced any investigation into a named insurer. The report identifies a market wide practice; it does not, on its face, allege a breach by any particular company.

Two things remain unknown. The first is whether disclosure changes anything: the report shows that most people do not shop around even now, and it does not test whether better explanations would change that. The second is whether ASIC's enforcement warning has teeth. Until a case is brought, the finding stands as a measurement rather than a remedy.