Illustrative life insurance premiums in Australia, what drives the price, why the cost rises with age, and how stepped and level structures change what you pay over time. General advice only.
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General Advice Only
Insure Me For Life is Authorised Representative Number 1244847 of Consilium Advice Australia Pty Ltd, Australian Financial Services Licence 246623.
Detailed comparison of retail vs super life insurance: TPD definitions, costs, portability
There is no single price. Life insurance cost in Australia is driven by your age, the type and amount of cover, whether premiums are stepped or level, your occupation and health, and whether cover sits inside or outside super. As an illustrative panel reference, indicative stepped premiums for $500,000 of life cover for a 30-year-old non-smoker in a professional occupation are $14 to $34/month*, rising to $188 to $240/month* by age 60. These are illustrative panel figures, not a quote for your situation.
The good news is that the cost curve is predictable: insurers price each year of cover from national mortality data, so the shape of the increase is known in advance even though the exact dollar figure depends on the person. This guide explains what drives the price, shows illustrative monthly figures, compares stepped and level premiums, and sets out the levers that reduce a premium without removing the benefits that matter.
General advice warning: This information is general advice only. It is produced by Insure Me For Life (AR 1244847) under Consilium Advice Australia Pty Ltd (AFSL 246623) and does not take into account your objectives, financial situation, or needs. The premiums shown are illustrative examples sourced from live panel data, not personal quotes. Consider the relevant Product Disclosure Statement and your own circumstances before making a decision.
Every premium answers one question for the insurer: how likely is a claim, and how large would it be? The bigger the assessed risk, the higher the premium. The main levers are below.
Lifestyle and pastimes (skydiving or rock climbing draw questions) and, for income protection, income also feed into the assessment. Some of these factors cannot be changed; others (smoking status, health at application, premium structure) can, and those levers are covered later in this guide.
Insure Me For Life is a panel broker that compares across 9 insurers (AIA, Zurich, TAL, OnePath, ClearView, NEOS, Encompass, Acenda, and Futura), with no ownership tie to any panel insurer. That is the lens for the figures and comparisons below.
Because price scales with age, a monthly figure only means something once age, cover amount, and structure are fixed. The table below shows the illustrative panel range for $500,000 of life cover for a non-smoker in a professional occupation, on stepped premiums, sourced from live LRO panel data.
| Age | Indicative panel range / month |
|---|---|
| 30 | $14 to $34 |
| 45 | $23 to $36 |
| 60 | $188 to $240 |
The pattern is the important part: the dollar step between ages widens as you get older, even though the percentage increase each year is broadly similar. That is the mortality curve at work, explained next. These are illustrative panel figures for one profile and are not a quote.
For a figure matched to your own age, cover amount, occupation, and health, an indicative comparison across the panel is the only reliable approach. An "average" premium is not meaningful when the inputs vary this much.
Life insurance is priced on mortality risk: the statistical likelihood that the insurer will need to pay a claim in a given year. Insurers draw that risk from the Australian Life Tables published by the Australian Government Actuary, which compile national death statistics by age and sex. Those tables show that mortality risk does not rise in a straight line. It compounds, roughly doubling every 7 to 10 years.
Think of it as compound interest working against you. If risk at 25 is some baseline, it is broadly double that by the mid-30s, double again by the mid-40s, and so on. On a stepped policy (the most common type), that is why premiums increase by a broadly similar percentage each year but by larger dollar amounts each decade: the same percentage applied to a larger base is a bigger step in dollars.
The curve steepens after age 50 because that is when serious conditions such as cardiovascular disease, cancer and diabetes become more common.
The illustrative panel figures below are for a male non-smoker in a professional occupation, $500,000 of life cover, stepped premiums (Source: LRO API panel data, indicative range):
The later decades cost far more cumulatively. The practical point most cost guides reach is the same: the earlier cover is taken out, the lower the rate locked in, and the longer that lower rate applies.
Yes, and it is worth asking for before you buy. On a stepped policy, next year's premium is not a mystery: it comes off the insurer's published rate-for-age table, so an illustrative year-by-year projection can be produced at quote time rather than discovered one anniversary at a time. When comparing quotes, ask to see the projected premium at five, ten and twenty years alongside the first-year price.
That projection is also the honest way to compare stepped against level premiums. A level policy starts higher but holds its rate, so somewhere in the projection the lines cross; where they cross depends on your age and the insurer's pricing. Rate tables are not contractually guaranteed (insurers can reprice a whole rate series), so treat projections as illustrative, but they are far more informative than a single first-year figure.
This choice affects not just next year's bill but the total paid over the life of the policy.
Stepped premiums start lower and go up every year: you pay the current rate for your current age.
Level premiums start higher but stay relatively flat for a set period (commonly to age 65), with no age-based increases during that period.
| Feature | Stepped premiums | Level premiums |
|---|---|---|
| Starting cost | Lower | Higher |
| How it changes | Increases each year with your age | Stays relatively flat to a set age (commonly 65) |
| Cheaper early on | Yes | No |
| Cheaper long term | Not usually | Often, if held past the crossover |
| Crossover point | Depends on entry age and insurer pricing; ask for a projection | Depends on entry age and insurer pricing; ask for a projection |
| Commonly chosen for | Shorter cover horizons (for example, until a mortgage is repaid) | Longer cover horizons |
Two points of caution. First, level premiums are only cheaper in total if the policy is genuinely held past the crossover; cancelling early tends to mean overpaying. Second, a level premium is not fixed forever. When the level period ends (commonly at 65) it converts to stepped rates for that age, which is a steep step up: current panel data shows a 60-year-old male non-smoker already pays a premium within the indicative panel range for $500,000 of cover on stepped premiums (Source: LRO API panel data, indicative range), and a 65-year-old faces higher stepped rates still. Someone converting from decades of level premiums will see a very significant jump at that point, and some people cancel at conversion, which is unfortunate if they still need cover.
Neither structure is "better" in the abstract. Stepped is commonly chosen where cover is expected to run for a defined shorter period or where the lowest starting outlay matters most; level where cover will be kept for a long time or premium certainty is valued. The fit depends on how long cover is expected to be kept. For a fuller treatment, see stepped vs level premiums in Australia.
Smoking is an insurer underwriting distinction, not a broker-controlled field. Smoker rates typically run materially higher than non-smoker rates for the same profile, commonly approaching double, because tobacco and nicotine use raise the risk of heart disease, stroke, and cancer.
Insurers classify you as a smoker if you have used tobacco or nicotine products in the past 12 months, which includes cigarettes, cigars, pipes, and vaping or nicotine replacement with nicotine. The reverse is also true and useful: after 12 consecutive months smoke-free, you can apply to be reclassified as a non-smoker. Insurers typically ask for a signed declaration and may request medical evidence such as a blood test. The reclassification can reduce the premium materially, and that saving compounds over the remaining life of the policy.
As an illustration, current panel data shows a 30-year-old non-smoker pays $14 to $34/month* for $500,000 of life cover (Source: LRO API panel data, indicative range). Our snapshot covers non-smoker rates only; for an indicative smoker figure, a panel comparison matched to your details is the right step.
Yes, and not in the way many people expect. Doubling the sum insured does not double the premium, because part of an insurer's cost (administration and underwriting) is fixed per policy whether the sum insured is $250,000 or $1 million. The cost per $1,000 of cover therefore falls as the sum insured rises.
The practical implication: buying less cover than a household needs purely to save money tends to cost more per $1,000 of protection, not less. Working out the right amount first, then pricing it, is the more useful order.
"Life insurance" is often used loosely to mean a suite of covers, and each is priced on its own risk:
Income protection is priced quite differently from lump-sum cover because it depends on your income, occupation, waiting period, and benefit period. Under APRA's individual disability income insurance reforms, newer income protection contracts cap the replacement ratio at 90 percent of earnings for the first six months and 70 percent thereafter (Source: APRA, Final individual disability income insurance sustainability measures). For an income protection figure, an indicative quote matched to your income and occupation is the only reliable guide, because it is not represented in the illustrative life-cover snapshot above.
Holding more than one cover type on a single policy is also commonly priced differently from holding each separately; insurers often apply a discount to combined cover, though only cover that is actually needed makes the discount worth having.
Where the cover is held changes both the price and how it is paid.
In Australia, the large majority of life cover is held through superannuation. Of roughly 29.1 million lives insured across all cover types at June 2025, about 75 percent of cover was held through super, around 12 percent through advised individual policies, and 9 percent sold directly (Source: APRA, Life insurance claims and disputes data, June 2025, Policy statistics). ASIC's Moneysmart frames the core decision as inside super versus outside super and notes that default or direct cover "might not match your needs" (Source: ASIC Moneysmart, Life cover). Which path suits a given household depends on individual circumstances; this is general information, not a recommendation. See also retail life insurance vs life insurance through super.
Premium reduction is a set of specific levers, and they are not equally safe. The levers that reduce price without touching the core benefit:
The levers that reduce price by reducing protection: cutting the sum insured below what your dependants would need, stretching an income protection waiting period beyond what your savings could bridge, or cancelling a cover type entirely. These are not automatically wrong, but they are trades, not savings. The practical test for any change: would the policy still do its job on the worst day? If yes, the saving is real. If no, the premium was not the problem.
Optional extras are the most commonly reviewable part of a premium, because each one is separately priced and separately removable. Common examples across retail policies: indexation (automatic annual increases to the sum insured, each increase raising the premium), future-insurability or benefit-increase options, trauma reinstatement, and premium-waiver options. Whether any of them is droppable depends on what it does for you: pausing indexation on a policy that is already larger than your needs costs you nothing real, while dropping it on a right-sized policy quietly erodes cover against inflation.
No general list can say which extras are safe for you to drop, because that depends on circumstances this page does not assess. What a broker can do within a general advice model is requote your existing cover with and without each option, so you can see the exact premium each one costs and decide with real numbers. Check the PDS for whether a removed option can be re-added later, because many require new underwriting to restore.
The expensive mistake is cancelling outright, because re-entering later means a premium priced on an older age and a new round of underwriting on whatever health history has accumulated since. Before that point, there is usually a ladder of smaller moves: pause or decline this year's indexation increase, reduce the sum insured to a level that still covers the essentials, review optional extras as above, or check whether holding some cover inside super (paid from the super balance rather than take-home pay) relieves the cash-flow pressure even if it does not change the true cost.
Insurers and brokers see premium stress constantly, and some insurers offer hardship measures such as premium pauses or temporary cover suspensions; availability and consequences vary by insurer and are set out in the PDS. Raising the problem before missing payments preserves the most options, because a lapsed policy generally cannot simply be switched back on.
Cover through superannuation is the common starting point, because default premiums are deducted from the super balance rather than the household budget, and default cover typically involves no medical underwriting (check what your fund provides by default). The amounts are usually modest and the definitions can be narrower than retail cover, but the cash-flow profile fits a tight budget.
Outside super, life cover itself has no income requirement, and a small sum insured priced across the panel can cost less than many people assume, particularly at younger ages. Income protection is different: it replaces earned income, so it is generally not available to someone without employment income, and Centrelink support is not insurable income. As with everything on this page, these are factual options, not a recommendation; what suits a given household depends on circumstances this page does not assess.
The easiest check is a like-for-like requote: get fresh quotes for the same cover amount, cover type and premium structure you hold today, and put them next to your current renewal notice. If the market prices the same cover materially below what you pay, that gap is real information; if it does not, your policy is priced about where the market is.
Two traps to avoid when running this check. First, an annual increase on a stepped policy is the structure working as designed, not evidence of overpaying; compare your renewal against what a new stepped policy would cost at your current age, not against what you paid at 35. Second, a cheaper quote is only a saving if the features match: a lower premium with a weaker TPD definition or a shorter terminal illness benefit period is a different product, not the same product cheaper. And if you do decide to move, never cancel existing cover until the replacement policy is issued and in force.
The cheapest premium is poor value if the policy does not respond when a claim is made. The features that most often separate two similarly priced policies:
Terminal illness benefit. Check whether the definition pays on a life expectancy of 12 months or 24 months. The difference can matter significantly for some conditions, and a 24-month definition typically costs more.
TPD definitions. Own Occupation (pays if you cannot do your specific job) is broader than Any Occupation (pays only if you cannot do any job for which you are reasonably suited). Own Occupation costs more, and the gap matters most for specialised careers. See what is TPD insurance.
Trauma definitions. More listed conditions are not automatically better; how each condition is defined determines whether a diagnosis actually meets the policy wording.
Claims performance. Claims-accepted rates and dispute rates vary across insurers. ASIC's Moneysmart Life Insurance Claims Comparison Tool publishes both by channel using APRA data (Source: ASIC Moneysmart), so this can be checked rather than guessed.
Illustrative figures and averages are a starting point, not an answer. An accurate price needs your specific inputs, and the spread between insurers is wide enough that comparing matters.
Compare indicative premiums across 9 panel insurers based on your age, cover amount, and health. The comparison takes about 3 minutes and is general advice only.
Compare Quotes NowLife insurance cost in Australia is predictable in its drivers even though there is no single price. Age sets the base because premiums track mortality risk, which roughly doubles every 7 to 10 years. Cover type and amount, the stepped-versus-level choice, occupation, health, and smoking status do the rest. The illustrative panel figures above show modest premiums for younger non-smokers on $500,000 of life cover, rising substantially with age, but they are examples sourced from panel data, not a quote.
The reliable next step is an indicative comparison matched to your own details, across the panel rather than from a single insurer, while remembering that the cheapest premium is not the same as the best value once definitions and claims performance are taken into account.
There is no single price. Cost depends on your age, the type and amount of cover, whether premiums are stepped or level, your occupation and health, and whether cover is held inside or outside super. As an illustrative panel reference, indicative stepped premiums for $500,000 of life cover for a 30-year-old non-smoker in a professional occupation are $14 to $34/month*, rising to $188 to $240/month* by age 60. These are illustrative panel figures sourced from live LRO panel data, not a quote for your circumstances.
An "average" is misleading because premiums vary widely by age, cover amount, and structure. A 30-year-old non-smoker on stepped premiums pays a small fraction of what a 55-year-old pays for identical cover, because life insurance is priced on mortality risk, which roughly doubles every 7 to 10 years. On current panel data, $500,000 of stepped life cover for a male non-smoker in a professional occupation is $14 to $34/month* at 30 and $82 to $114/month* at 55. The most reliable figure is an indicative quote matched to your own age, health, and cover amount.
Life insurance premiums are based on mortality risk, the statistical likelihood that the insurer will need to pay a claim. Insurers use the Australian Life Tables published by the Australian Government Actuary, which compile national death statistics by age and sex. Those tables show mortality risk roughly doubling every 7 to 10 years, so stepped premiums rise by a broadly similar percentage each year but by larger dollar amounts each decade. The acceleration after age 50 reflects the rising incidence of age-related conditions such as cardiovascular disease and cancer.
Stepped premiums start lower and increase each year with your age. Level premiums start higher but stay relatively flat for a set period (commonly to age 65), then convert to stepped rates for that age. Stepped is usually cheaper in the early years; level can be cheaper in total if the policy is held long enough for the lines to cross. Where that crossover falls depends on the age at entry and the insurer's pricing, so ask for a year-by-year projection when comparing. Which structure fits depends on how long the cover is expected to be kept, not on price alone.
General Advice Only
Insure Me For Life is Authorised Representative Number 1244847 of Consilium Advice Australia Pty Ltd, Australian Financial Services Licence 246623.