{"id":911941,"date":"2026-10-01T06:56:21","date_gmt":"2026-10-01T06:56:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/911941\/"},"modified":"2026-10-01T06:56:21","modified_gmt":"2026-10-01T06:56:21","slug":"home-loan-junk-insurance-refunds-why-millions-of-aussies-are-still-owed-money","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/911941\/","title":{"rendered":"Home loan junk insurance refunds: Why millions of Aussies are still owed money"},"content":{"rendered":"

Exclusive: When Debra Gray received a text saying she was owed a $32,760 home loan refund, she thought it was a scam<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The 64-year-old was so suspicious that she handed over details for an account with barely any money<\/a> in it, just in case. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

An old mortgage landed aged care worker Deb a $33k payout.\u00a0Supplied\/Nine<\/p>\n

But a week later, the cash landed in her account.<\/p>\n

\u201cI couldn\u2019t believe what I was seeing. It all seemed too good to be true,\u201d the regional NSW<\/a> aged care worker, who lives in Quirindi, told nine.com.au.<\/p>\n

Up to one in three Australian households have been sold junk insurance \u2013 optional add-on policies such as Consumer Credit Insurance (CCI) sold alongside home loans, credit cards, and personal loans.<\/p>\n

Major banks scrapped the products after the 2019 banking royal commission found they offered customers poor value for money.<\/p>\n

Canstar data insights director Sally Tindall said many borrowers had no idea they had even purchased the cover because it was quietly bundled into their loan paperwork.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was often presented as part of the lending process, rather than as a separate product that borrowers properly considered and compared,\u201d Tindall said.<\/p>\n

Gray took out her mortgage with ANZ in 2014 after she and her husband moved into her mother\u2019s Tarbuck Bay home.<\/p>\n

Her mother needed extra care, and the house needed renovations, so Gray turned to the bank she had used since she was 16.<\/p>\n

\"ANZ<\/p>\n

Gray took out her mortgage with ANZ in 2014.\u00a0AAP<\/p>\n

Because her mother owned the property, Gray had to include her on the loan paperwork.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was employed full-time at this stage and was more than happy to make the full payments on the loan,\u201d she told nine.com.au.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I raised concerns that should something happen to me, I didn\u2019t want my mother to have the burden of the mortgage to pay as she was on only an age pension.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was offered extra insurance by the bank to ensure this would cover all costs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gray paid for the insurance until she turned 60, when the insurer told her it could no longer cover her.<\/p>\n

She arranged her own policy and eventually sold the property after her mother died \u2013 a common outcome for borrowers sold restrictive add-on policies.<\/p>\n

\u201cAn ASIC report<\/a> from 2019 found that for every $1 spent on these policies, just 19 cents was paid out. For credit card insurance, that figure was just 11 cents,\u201d Tindall said.<\/p>\n

Gray had no reason to question the product until 2024, when her husband saw a news report about people claiming refunds for mis-sold financial add-ons.<\/p>\n

Still, she dug through her old paperwork and sent the documents to claims company Claimo to investigate.<\/p>\n

Claimo says it has helped Australians recover more than $50 million in recent years, with its heftiest payouts linked to old home loan policies.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe insurance premium was often based partly on the size of the loan, so a larger mortgage could mean higher premiums and, potentially, a larger refund,\u201d managing director Nathan Mortlock said.<\/p>\n

\u201cRefunds over $30,000 are more common than many people think, particularly for policies sold alongside home loans by a major bank.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tindall said while more than $160 million has been returned to 434,000 consumers, many remain unaware they are entitled to the refunds.<\/p>\n

After clearing her own payout, Gray hopes sharing her story helps others uncover forgotten money.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere must be so many people in the same situation that I was in and have absolutely no idea they were being taken advantage of,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

ANZ declined to comment when contacted by nine.com.au. <\/p>\n

The bank no longer offers Mortgage Protection Insurance or any other Consumer Credit Insurance products.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Exclusive: When Debra Gray received a text saying she was owed a $32,760 home loan refund, she thought…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":911942,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[64,63,99],"class_list":["post-911941","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/911941","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=911941"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/911941\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/911942"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=911941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=911941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=911941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}