Cheaper Life Insurance: 10 Ways to Cut Your Premium (2026)

Your renewal notice arrived and the number went up again. Of course it did. Stepped premiums rise every year, insurers reprice their books from time to time, but nobody in the industry is going to ring you to mention there's a cheaper way to hold the same policy, even though there usually is.

Most cost-cutting advice in this industry starts with "reduce your cover", which is a bit like saving on petrol by not driving your car. Below are 10 ways to pay less for life insurance, and only the last two involve cutting your cover.

The short answer

10 Ways You Can Reduce Your Life Insurance Premiums

1. Switch to a broker that gives you part of the adviser commission back through cashback (no change to cover, new health questions), often this is around 10% of premiums
2. Pay annually instead of monthly to avoid a 6% to 9.1% premium loading
3. Claim insurer health discounts of 7.5% to 23%
4. Switch to non-smoker rates once you've been nicotine-free for 12 months. This can reduce premiums by 30% or more.
5. Ask for a loading or exclusion to be reviewed if these apply to your policy
6. Compare the premium from other insurers - the cheapest insurer can be literally half the price of the most expensive for essentially the same cover
7. Check super vs retail pricing, especially from your 40s - insurance in super can be a multiple of comparable retail cover at older ages
8. Use super and tax rules to lower the after-tax cost
9. Decline indexation if your cover is already enough
10. Adjust waiting periods, benefit periods and cover amounts as your situation changes

Before you start

Why Did My Life Insurance Premium Go Up?

Most premium increases come from one of three places. Unfortunately, these generally happen every year.

• Age. Stepped premiums are recalculated every policy anniversary, and the increases get steeper from your 40s. Level premiums (or the new, more accurate, name variable premiums) avoid most of this, but cost more upfront and, bluntly, can stay higher - read our analysis
• Indexation. Many policies lift your sum insured each year to keep pace with inflation, and the premium rises with it. Handy if you need the extra cover. Less handy if you didn't notice you were buying it.
• Insurer repricing. Insurers regularly adjust rates across their whole book. Several did in 2026 already, including TPD and income protection.

Ways 1 to 8

Pay Less for the Same Cover

These lower what you pay without touching what the policy pays out. Start here.

1. Get part of the commission back (cashback)

Here's the line item nobody shows you. Retail life insurance premiums include an allowance for adviser commission, whether or not you've spoken to an adviser since the day you signed. Under current rules that's up to:

Cashback hands part of that back. With Keep we give you back around 10% of each premium (based on 50% of the ongoing commission) on existing policies transferred to us. It isn't a sign-up bonus or a promotion. It's money that was already built into your premium, and is the largest cashback we've been able to find advertised and available in the market!

A transfer only changes the servicing adviser. The insurer, cover, premium rate and original underwriting all stay the same, which makes it the only option on this list with no health questions and no change to your policy.

Same insurer, same cover, same underwriting. Only the adviser changes.

More detail: how life insurance commissions work and how a policy transfer works. If your current adviser genuinely earns that commission with ongoing advice, that's worth something. If you can't remember their name, that's worth something too.

For new policies (which are subject to underwriting), our standard cashback arrangement is 12.5% of every premium - the largest advertised available cashback in the market.

2. Pay annually instead of monthly

Every major insurer we quote charges extra for the privilege of paying monthly: a loading of 6% to 9.1% on top of the annual premium. If your cash flow allows, switching to annual removes it, takes one request, and changes nothing else about your cover.

On a $1,500 annual premium, a 9.1% monthly loading costs about $137 a year, every year, for the convenience of being debited 12 times. If one big payment doesn't suit your cash flow, half-yearly is the quiet compromise: TAL and MetLife don't load it at all.

And whilst a 9.1% loading seems a lot, this equates to an effective interest rate of close to double.

3. Claim insurer health and wellness discounts

Insurers have worked out that healthier customers claim less, and some will now pay you to prove it. Most major retail insurers discount premiums for a healthy BMI, regular health checks or program engagement:

Some apply automatically at application. Others need you to opt in or complete a check. If you already hold one of these policies, ask whether a discount can be added or reset. Discounts come off the insurer's premium, so they stack with cashback. Your step count finally has a dollar value. Full program comparison.

4. Switch to non-smoker rates

Smoking can add up to 50% to the cost of life cover, depending on age and insurer (see life insurance costs by age). Most insurers treat you as a non-smoker once you've gone 12 months without tobacco or nicotine. And yes, vapes count. So do nicotine patches, and so does the "only when I've had a few".

If you've quit since your policy started, your insurer won't notice on its own. You have to tell them. You can usually apply to have your rate changed, and the insurer may ask for a declaration or a cotinine test (a simple nicotine test). Nothing else about the cover changes.

5. Ask for a loading or exclusion to be reviewed

A loading is a percentage added to your premium because of a health condition, occupation or hobby, such as a 50%, 100% or even 150% loading. An exclusion removes cover for a specific condition instead.

Both are set on the day you apply and then tend to sit there, quietly, perhaps for decades. Insurers don't review them unless you ask. A review may be worth requesting if:

• you've lost weight and your BMI is now in a standard range
• blood pressure or cholesterol is now well controlled
• you've been symptom-free for several years from a back, knee or mental health condition that was excluded
• you've moved from a manual or high-risk job into a lower-risk occupation (this mostly affects TPD and income protection)
• you've given up a hazardous pursuit such as motorsport or diving

Your insurer will want supporting evidence, usually a GP report or recent test results. Removal isn't guaranteed, but retail policies are guaranteed renewable, so asking shouldn't put your existing terms at risk.

Insurers also don't agree with each other. A condition one insurer loads at 10% may be accepted at standard rates, or with a smaller loading, by another. Underwriting is less of an exact science than the paperwork suggests, so a loading is a reason to compare insurers, not a verdict. How underwriting works.

6. Compare your premium with other insurers

Insurers price the same person very differently. In our April 2026 data for $250,000 life and TPD cover at age 30, retail premiums ranged from $222 to $397 a year. Same person, same cover, but could save you up to 44% on what you are currently paying. Some insurers also offer first-year discounts to win new customers.

The catch, and it's a real one: switching insurers means a new application, and new underwriting. Your premium will be based on your age and health today, and anything that's developed since your current policy started can be loaded or excluded. A new life policy also restarts the 13-month suicide exclusion. If your health has changed, the cheapest option may be the policy you already have, with cashback added. . Compare life insurance quotes.

7. Check whether super or retail is cheaper at your age

Super cover is the default for most Australians, which isn't the same thing as being the cheapest. It's group-priced, so the premium doesn't track your individual health. Our April 2026 comparison of 10 super funds ($250,000 life and TPD, male, white collar, non-smoker) found:

• Age 30: four of the largest funds were cheaper than the cheapest retail policy after cashback.
• Age 40: the cheapest retail policy after cashback ($205 a year) beat 8 of the 10 funds.
• Age 50: AustralianSuper cost $1,112, QSuper $1,709 and BUSSQ $3,115, against $553 for the cheapest retail policy after cashback. Not a rounding error.

While you're there, check you aren't paying for insurance in more than one super fund. Plenty of people are, usually thanks to a job they left years ago. myGov shows every fund you hold. See the full super vs retail comparison.

8. Use super and tax rules to lower the after-tax cost

Not glamorous, but where a premium is paid from changes what it actually costs you.

• Income protection held outside super is generally tax deductible. Income protection tax rules.
• Life and TPD premiums paid personally generally aren't deductible, but both can be held inside super and paid from pre-tax super contributions, not your after tax wallet. The trade-off is a smaller retirement balance.
• A linked structure (superlinking) holds any-occupation TPD in super and own-occupation TPD outside, splitting the premium across both. How linking covers works.

Ways 9 and 10

Adjust the Cover to Fit Your Situation Now

These two do cut your cover, which is why they're last. They can make perfect sense when life has moved on: the mortgage is smaller, the kids have jobs, the dog is the only dependant left. Just remember cover is easy to reduce and annoyingly hard to add back, because increasing it later is likely to mean new underwriting.

9. Decline indexation if your cover is already enough

Indexation raises your sum insured each year in line with inflation, and your premium follows. It's a sensible default. It's also on autopilot, and autopilot doesn't know you've paid off half the mortgage, or that your kids are growing up. If you already hold more cover than you need, you can usually decline the increase at renewal. Some insurers stop offering indexation after you decline it several years running, so check your PDS before making a habit of it. How indexation works.

10. Adjust waiting periods, benefit periods and cover amounts

• Income protection: a 90-day waiting period instead of 30 days, or a shorter benefit period, can lower premiums noticeably. If you have three months of sick leave or savings, you may be paying to insure a gap you've already covered yourself. Benefit periods explained.
• Life cover: if your mortgage has come down or your children are older (or at least employed), the amount you need may be lower than when you applied. You can usually reduce your sum insured at any time without new health questions.
• TPD: a lower sum insured, or using an any-occupation definition instead of own-occupation, costs less. Any-occupation is harder to claim on. Own vs any occupation.

Use the calculator to see how much cover your inputs point to today.

At a glance

Which Options Change Your Cover or Need Underwriting?

Avoid costly mistakes

Thinking of Cancelling? Check This First

You can cancel a retail life insurance policy at any time but it's also the one option on this page you can't easily undo. If your health has changed since you applied, new cover may cost more or come with exclusions, if it's offered at all.

If you do cancel, here's what happens to your money:

• Within the cooling-off period (usually 30 days from the policy start), you get a full refund.
• Paying annually: most insurers refund the unused portion of the year's premium.
• Paying monthly: premiums stop and cover ends. There's nothing to refund.
• No cash value: retail life, TPD, trauma and income protection policies don't build a savings or surrender value, so you don't get back premiums already paid.

If the reason is cost, try ways 1 to 8 first. Cancelling a policy to save $137 a year that switching to annual payments would have saved is a poor trade. If the reason is that you need less cover, reducing the sum insured (way 10) keeps some protection in place. Either way:

• Don't cancel existing cover until the replacement is accepted in writing.
• Answer every health question fully. Non-disclosure can lead to a claim being reduced, declined, or the policy voided altogether.
• Check what an older policy has that new ones don't. Agreed-value income protection, for example, hasn't been sold since 2020.
• A new policy restarts the suicide exclusion and can add new exclusions. A transfer doesn't.

Provider comparison

Life Insurance Cashback Providers in Australia

Several Australian firms offer cashback or commission rebates. The fine print varies more than the headlines do. Check whether cashback applies to new policies, transfers or both, what share of commission is returned, and whether a minimum commission threshold applies.

Compare the underlying premium from the insurer as well as the cashback. A bigger rebate on a more expensive policy is still a more expensive policy.