Disclaimer: Information provided in this article does not qualify as professional financial advice. Always seek your own financial advice when purchasing an insurance product for your vehicle. All quotes are current to July 2022

Insurance products vary between different providers as do premiums across the different states and territories in Australia. Even within the same city you may get varying quotes depending on where you park your vehicle. Some companies separate where you park your car during the day versus where you park during the night. Premiums will also vary greatly and are dependent on factors such as

• Age
  
• number of years that you’ve held a driver licence in Australia
  
• how many insurance claims you’ve had
  
• whether you’ve been at fault
  
• whether you have a clean driving record
  
• whether you intend to have factory fitted or after market modifications
  
• how much you intend to drive each year.

The following comprehensive car insurance quotes for the Model Y in Australia are based on someone who is very similar to my own situation ie. a 40 year old male who is planning to use this vehicle for private use only with no outstanding finance owing. This example person will have held a driver licence from an Australian state or territory for the last 10 years with no recent licence suspensions in the last 3 years. There have been no at-fault insurance claims or any claims refused in the last 5 years. The policy I am seeking will have an inclusion of at least 1 excess free windscreen damage claim per year. Furthermore this policy will be age restricted to 30 years and above with no further excess required. There will be no factory fitted or aftermarket options or modifications. The vehicle will be garaged at night, the plan is to drive up to 15000 km per annum and the vehicle will be at the current market value at the time of a claim. Maximum no-claim bonus will be applied to the premium and for me, a choice of repairer is a must and the expectation is for at least a new for old replacement within 2 years.

Choice of repairer

Why am I so particular about a choice of repairer? Don’t all parts need to come from Tesla or from a Tesla approved body shop anyway? All parts for repairs need to be sourced from Tesla eventually but from what I hear from those in the smash repair industry is that if an insurance company does not give you a choice of repairer, they then reserve the right to send you to someone in their network. If you’re lucky, that may be a Tesla approved body shop. It’s quite likely that it will not be particularly because Tesla vehicles only make up a small percentage of our fleet in Australia. If you’re stuck with a non-approved work shop, they have to order the parts from an approved body shop who then have to order the parts from Tesla directly OR the insurance company has to send you to an approved body shop. But the question then becomes … how long will this process take? Days? Weeks? How valuable is your time? Are you happy to be given the run around? Multiple phone calls? How long are you happy to go without your Tesla? For me personally, I want my car fixed ASAP and that’s why I’ll pay the premium to have a choice of repairer which is critical for a specialised vehicle like a Tesla. I’ve heard of situations where the insurer that doesn’t allow you a choice of repairer will send you to a Tesla approved body shop that is out of your area and far away from your home. Do yourself a favour, save time, make sure you get a choice of repairer. Some of the insurance companies give you the option to tick the checkbox for choice of repairer whereas some have it built into their policies so please make sure you read through the PDS for the quotes you get.

In this chart I’ve used CommInsure which is the insurance arm of the Commonwealth Bank which incidentally I’m currently using for comprehensive car insurance for our Model 3 in Sydney. As you can see I’ve entered the capital city of each state and territory as the location of this hypothetical Rear Wheel Drive 2022 Tesla Model Y with the qualifiers that I listed earlier in the video. I’ve raised the excess for each state to the maximum allowable as my personal philosophy is that car insurance should be used for major accidents rather than minor ones that could potentially be repaired for less without affecting your no-claim bonus hence why I’ve gone for the highest allowable excess. The cheapest place to insure a Model Y is in Hobart in Tasmania with an annual premium of $938.18 whereas Melbourne Victoria has the honour of having the most expensive premium at $1662.21 Sydney NSW is not far behind at just over $1400 followed by Darwin in the NT at over $1200. Canberra in the ACT and Adelaide in SA are roughly the same at just over $1100 whereas Brisbane QLD and Perth in WA are just over $1000 each. So that gives you an approximate idea of how much it costs to insure a base Model Y and how different it is between the Australian states and territories.

Let’s focus a bit more in my home city of Sydney and for the suburb of Chatswood 2067. For the insurance companies that were listed on the Canstar website, these 5 companies (I’ve listed GIO twice and I’ll explain why soon) are the only ones that allowed me to select Model Y as an option and the only companies that gave me an instant quote online.

With each policy I’ve attempted to increase the excess for each policy to its allowable maximum. The only exception is GIO where I’ve given two scenarios - the first is with an excess of $3245 which is way outside the bell curve of this cohort so much so that I’ve given another scenario of $1645 which is more in line with the next lowest maximum excess in this lot namely CommInsure. Although I’ve tried to control the variables as much as I can, there is still variation in policy amounts for the exact same vehicle in the exact same suburb. If you want a super high excess like what GIO are offering with $3245 then you can enjoy the cheapest annual premium of the lot at $1364,91 but interestingly Suncorp is actually the most expensive of this bunch at $2156.42 with an excess of $2195. I say interestingly because anecdotally, many viewers have told me in the past that Suncorp was relatively cheap for insuring a Model 3. CommInsure seems to be quite good value at $1404.54 annually with an excess of $1700 while NRMA was $1756.04 with an excess of $2000. Allianz is $2107.11 annually with an excess of $2000 while with GIO if you choose a lower excess of $1645 then it will cost you $1640.79 per annum for the base Model Y. The notable exception here is AAMI because they do not give you a choice of repairer at all and personally that is a policy that I would not purchase for reasons I have already outlined earlier in this article.

Optimising your Model Y for the best outcomes in the case of insurance claims

Now that you know the approximate prices of insurance policies for the Model Y, let me explain how to optimise your car and your situation should you run into an accident. Make sure your Tesla DashCam and Sentry Mode is always active when you drive and when you park your car in a public space. The easiest way to make sure it is working is if the dashcam/sentry mode icon has a red dot. If the red dot is present it means that it is armed and recording. If you see a cross, it means it’s not working and the best way to rectify this is to pull the storage drive out and put it back in. Failing that, try restarting the car. Failing that you may need a new storage drive. In rare instances, it may be due to a car software bug and yes it has happened before, trust me. I also strongly recommend using a solid state drive instead of a USB drive - I’ve been told that there’s less chance of losing your footage when the car records onto a new file. If you are involved in an accident or if you see something, hit that button straight away when you’re driving and it will keep the last 10 minutes of recording for you. This is your best defence when submitting a claim to your insurance company and when filing a police report. It is invaluable so it’s worth a few extra seconds to make sure it’s armed and active each time you drive.

Finally, here are some crucial steps you need to take if you are involved in an accident particularly when you are not at fault. If it is safe to do so, get out of your car at the point of the accident. If you or someone else from either party is hurt, call 000. Otherwise whip out your phone. Take a photo of their licence plate and key initial photos of the damage and the incident and surrounding circumstances, take video if it helps. At this point, your pulse is probably racing and the adrenaline is running but do your best. Ask the other driver to show you their licence and take a photo of it. If for some reason they don’t have a licence, record their name and address. A quick way to do this is to record a video of yourself saying their name and address. This is important for the police report and subsequent insurance claim. You will need their phone number and sometimes unfortunately people give fake numbers. If you can, the best thing to do is to immediately call the number they give you on your phone and to ask them to show you their phone to make sure it is ringing. I realise this is all very difficult in the heat of the moment at the scene of an accident but it will save you a lot of hassle in the long run. Do not drive away until you have these details. Of course if your safety is threatened then it may not be worth it but at least you will have the dashcam footage which can be of great help to the police.

In summary, be sure to shop around to make sure you end up with the best policy premium and coverage for your Model Y.