Home Warranty (DBI) VIC: see the full builder's guide
Victoria's home warranty is called DBI (Domestic Building Insurance). Full builder's guide with thresholds, cover, LOE, and 2026 changes.
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Victoria’s home warranty product is officially called Domestic Building Insurance (DBI), not “home warranty insurance”. The full builder’s guide lives at Domestic Building Insurance VIC: builder’s guide to DBI.
Go there for everything you need: mandatory thresholds, cover amounts, trigger events, Letters of Eligibility, premium trends, and the shift to a first-resort scheme from 1 July 2026.
Quick summary
- Product name: Domestic Building Insurance (DBI)
- Who administers it: Building and Plumbing Commission (BPC) since 1 July 2025
- Mandatory threshold: contracts over $16,000 (rising to $20,000 from 1 July 2026)
- Maximum cover: $300,000 for policies from 1 July 2014
- Cover periods: 6 years structural defects, 2 years non-structural
- Current scheme: last-resort (claim only on builder death, insolvency, disappearance, or court-order non-compliance)
- From 1 July 2026: first-resort scheme; homeowners can claim even with the builder still trading
Read the full guide
All detail, including the Letter of Eligibility process, premium calculations, owner-builder obligations, and what DBI does not cover, is in the canonical article:
Domestic Building Insurance VIC: builder’s guide to DBI