Budget Direct Sweeps Money Magazine Awards, Setting Historic Eight-Year "Best of the Best" Record

BRISBANE, Australia, Dec. 4, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- In a market defined by rising premiums and cost-of-living pressures, Budget Direct has officially been named the winner of the 2026 Money Magazine Best of the Best insurer in the two key categories of Best-Value Car Insurance and Best-Value Home and Contents Insurance.

This victory marks a historic milestone in the hotly contested Australian insurance market, confirming Budget Direct as a leader in value by securing the car insurance title for eight years in a row (2019–2026) and the home and contents insurance award for five straight years (2022–2026) which is the ninth win in this category since 2017 (2017–2020).

The annual Money Magazine Best of the Best awards are widely regarded as a benchmark for consumer value, with a decade of "quantitative expertise" analysing market data across hundreds of providers and thousands of product choices.

Jonathan Kerr, Chief Growth Officer at Budget Direct, said the awards were strong market validation and a significant achievement for the business that is now paying out over $1.5 billion in car and home insurance claims in the last 12 months.

"Winning an award once is great, but winning it for eight and five years in a row, through a pandemic and a global inflation crisis, is remarkable and speaks to our core mission," said Kerr. "When Money Magazine asks, 'Who is the best-value car insurer?' or 'Who is the best-value home insurer?', their research provides the answer: it's Budget Direct."

By decoupling high-quality protection from high premiums, Budget Direct continues to solve the "Insurance Puzzle" for millions of Australians, ensuring they do not have to compromise on coverage to stay within budget.

Budget Direct continues to grow at pace expanding their suite of products, leveraging new technology and building internal capacity and capability to ensure efficiencies and win-wins for customers and the business.

Kerr added, "Our customers now send us photos via their mobile phones to help us understand the damage to their vehicles. Once we have received the photos, we leverage AI-driven machine vision, to make the claims process faster and easier for our customers. For home insurance, we're constantly working on how we can process more claims quickly, and if we can do that better than our competitors, then this leads to a more efficient business and contributes to our competitive pricing."

Read more about the Money Magazine 2026 Best of the Best Awards.

Get a quote for one of Budget Direct's award-winning insurance policies.

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Insurance is arranged by Auto & General Services Pty Ltd (ABN 61 003 617 909, AFSL 241 411, Registered Office: 13/9 Sherwood Rd, Toowong 4066) on behalf of the insurer, Auto & General Insurance Company Limited ABN 42 111 5 86 353.