2025 Direct Income Protection Star Ratings and Award

Canstar releases its
2025 Direct Income Protection Star Ratings and Award.

Released: 18 February, 2025

About this year’s awards

Canstar’s Direct Income Protection Star Ratings use a sophisticated and unique ratings methodology that assesses eligible direct income protection products on both the features it offers and the cost of the policy.

To be considered for evaluation, policies must meet Canstar’s eligibility criteria detailed in the methodology. Canstar’s Research Team assesses each eligible policy across 80 different consumer profiles, taking into account the age, gender and occupation of the policyholder, as well as smoking status.

The Direct Income Protection Outstanding Value Award is determined based on the providers with the highest cumulative performance across all 80 profiles.

Congratulations to the Award winners

(Winners are listed alphabetically)

Budget Direct

Outstanding Value Award – Direct Income Protection

Winning the Award for the second year in a row, Budget Direct’s Income Protection Insurance is competitively priced and offers consumers a strong feature proposition that sees Budget Direct recognised for offering outstanding value to its customers in 2025.

Budget Direct stands as a prominent general insurance provider in Australia, who says it has insured more than 3 million Aussies since it was founded in 2000. Budget Direct’s income protection insurance is issued by NobleOak.

NobleOak

Outstanding Value Award – Direct Income Protection

NobleOak has won this award 10 years in a row, maintaining its dominance in the market. NobleOak continues to have competitive price positioning, with some of the lowest premiums on offer. Year on year, NobleOak’s policy features continue to grow. They now provide more benefit and waiting period options, as well as increasing the maximum age limit to apply from 55 to 60 years, bringing the product to more customers than ever before.

NobleOak, or NobleOak Life limited, is an insurance provider specialising in life insurance policies, and says its history that dates back over 140 years makes it one of Australia’s oldest life insurers.

Does Canstar rate other products?

About Canstar

Canstar also has insights and information about financial products and services generally. You can find out about topics such as: interest rates, credit score, business products and tax. You may also be interested in discovering more about calculators and resources, such as our rate tracker and free credit score tool, to help you with your financial decision-making.

About: Josh Sale, Group Manager, Research & Ratings

Bachelor of Commerce, Economics/Finance dual major, Griffith University. Master of Data Science, Strategy and Leadership, RMIT (ongoing studies)

Joshua Sale is responsible for developing the methodology and delivering Canstar’s flagship Star Ratings, as part of Canstar’s Research team. With tertiary qualifications in economics and finance, he enjoys helping Australians find more suitable financial products by transforming complex calculations into a consumer-friendly Star Rating that explains the values and benefits of different financial products.

As one of Canstar’s company spokespeople, Joshua has participated in print, radio and broadcast interviews with the likes of the Australian Financial Review, news.com.au and Money magazine, along with other leading media outlets, discussing topics such as home loan equity, banking incentive schemes, digital wallets and wider finance trends.

Joshua is known for his ability to simplify complex products and technical information, crunching the data into meaningful insights for consumers about finance. He has analysed several consumer markets across banking, insurance and wealth, and is keenly interested in various topics, ranging from how Australians interact with their superannuation funds, to the dynamic nature of the health insurance market, and collecting and redeeming credit card reward points.

Joshua believes that knowledge is the first step towards empowerment. Even while studying, he facilitated peer-assisted study sessions for economics, and represented his University’s Business School in an academic committee.

You can follow Josh on LinkedIn, and Canstar on Twitter and Facebook.