Home Warranty Insurance in Tasmania: Why There Is No Scheme

What it is

Tasmania is the only Australian jurisdiction without a compulsory home warranty insurance scheme. That has been the position since compulsory cover was abolished in 2008. The Residential Building (Home Warranty Insurance Amendments) Act 2023 (Tas) passed in 2023 with an intent to reintroduce compulsory cover, but section 2 of that Act provides that its provisions commence on a day or days to be proclaimed, and no proclamation has issued as at July 2026.

The practical consequence is stark. An owner facing a Tasmanian builder that becomes insolvent, disappears or dies has no insurance-side claim to fall back on. The section 27 to 32 statutory warranties under the Residential Building Work Contracts and Dispute Resolution Act 2016 (Tas) still apply, but a warranty against an empty company is worth what the company has, which is often nothing.

What owners have instead

Where a builder becomes insolvent or otherwise unavailable, Tasmanian owners have several partial protections:

• statutory warranties under sections 27 to 32 of the 2016 Act, enforceable through CBOS mediation and TASCAT under section 62
• Australian Consumer Law consumer guarantees, enforceable through general courts
• personal claims against directors under general company law where a corporate builder is involved
• proof of debt in the insolvency administration

None of those pathways substitutes for compulsory insurance. Where the builder company has no assets and its directors have no personal liability, an owner with a TASCAT rectification order is unable to recover the rectification cost.

The 2023 Amendments Act

The Residential Building (Home Warranty Insurance Amendments) Act 2023 (No 25 of 2023) was passed in 2023 with an intent to reintroduce compulsory home warranty insurance in Tasmania. Section 2 of the Act provides that the provisions commence on a day or days to be proclaimed.

No proclamation has issued as at July 2026. The Act remains published only "as made" on legislation.tas.gov.au, with no in-force version. The reintroduction has been announced periodically since 2023 but no commencement date has been set. TradeForm TAS templates should not assume compulsory insurance is coming; they should be reviewed if and when the Act commences.

What the 2023 Act would do (if commenced)

The 2023 Act, if commenced, would introduce a compulsory scheme along broadly similar lines to the mainland state schemes. The Act itself sets the framework and leaves the operational details to regulations, but the general shape would be:

• compulsory cover for domestic building work above a prescribed threshold
• trigger events including builder insolvency, death and disappearance
• a defined cover cap and policy period
• an appointed scheme administrator (public or private insurer to be determined by regulation)

Until proclamation, none of this is in force. Any premium collected on the basis of the Act would be improper.

What TradeForm TAS templates disclose

Because no compulsory scheme exists, TradeForm TAS templates disclose the position on the face of the contract. Owners are told directly that no home warranty insurance is available in Tasmania, that the section 27 to 32 warranties are their statutory protection, and that CBOS mediation and TASCAT are the enforcement pathway.

That disclosure is a fairness step, not a legal requirement. Tasmania does not require builders to affirmatively disclose the absence of a scheme, but transparent disclosure reduces owner complaints post-contract about missing insurance and reduces UCT risk.

Private insurance is not available

Beyond the absent compulsory scheme, private home warranty insurance is not commercially available in Tasmania. The last private HWI provider withdrew from the market in the 2000s. Some builders quote generic professional indemnity or public liability coverage as a substitute, but neither responds to the same triggers or covers the same categories of loss as a compulsory home warranty scheme.

Owner-side risk mitigation

Owners engaging a Tasmanian builder should consider:

• checking the builder's registration status and history through CBOS records
• searching insolvency notices and ASIC records for the builder company and its directors
• staging payments tightly to the value of work completed at each stage
• requiring the builder to provide a bond or guarantee for the final payments (unusual but negotiable)
• keeping the deposit as low as possible (Tasmania caps at 10 per cent below $50,000 and 5 per cent at or above)

None of that replaces insurance. It reduces the exposure to a builder failure.

How Tasmania compares

Tasmania is the outlier. Every other Australian jurisdiction has a compulsory scheme: NSW HBCF ($340,000), VIC Home Warranty ($400,000, first resort from 1 July 2026), QLD QHWS ($200,000 per category), WA HII ($200,000), SA BII ($250,000), ACT ($200,000), NT Fidelity Fund (up to $200,000). Tasmania has none. That gap is the most significant structural feature of Tasmanian residential building law.