You collect the premium.
The home owner holds the cover.

The Queensland Home Warranty Scheme (QHWS) is a not-for-profit statutory insurance scheme administered by the QBCC (Queensland Building and Construction Commission). It is self-funded through the premiums contractors pay in, rather than run for profit by a private insurer, and it covers residential construction work in Queensland valued over $3,300 including labour, materials and GST. Confirm the current threshold figure against the QBCC before relying on it, as these settings are updated over time.

The insured is the home owner who contracts a licensed contractor, and the cover extends to subsequent purchasers, so the protection travels with the home rather than the original client relationship. The full legal terms sit in the QBCC Act 1991 Part 5 and the QBCC Regulation 2018 Part 6 and Schedule 6; check the current version of both, because the periods and limits below bind to contracts signed on or after 28 October 2016, and you should confirm currency for the relevant contract date.

Closer to first resort, and why that matters

Queensland is the odd one out. Where Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia run strictly last-resort schemes that respond only when the builder has died, disappeared or become insolvent, the QHWS operates closer to a first-resort statutory scheme: home owners can claim on contractor default and on defects generally, without first having to establish that the contractor is gone. That is a real difference in how exposed a Queensland builder is to the scheme, and it is worth being plain about with clients rather than assuming the southern last-resort logic applies here. For how Queensland compares with the other states, see our state-by-state home warranty guide, and for two last-resort schemes in depth, the NSW HBCF eligibility guide and the Victorian DBI guide.

How the premium works

The licensed contractor collects the premium and pays it to the QBCC on the home owner’s behalf, usually as part of the deposit. The premium must be paid before work starts and within 10 business days of signing the contract; confirm those timing rules against the QBCC before relying on them. Cover commences at the earliest of premium payment, contract signing, or work starting, so in practice the scheme’s clock can start before the money moves, which is another reason to get the paperwork and payment in order early.

Limits and cover levels

• Standard cover: $200,000 per category of loss, including up to $5,000 for alternative accommodation, removal and storage. Confirm the current figures against the QBCC before relying on them.
• Optional additional cover: lifts the limit to $300,000, including up to $10,000 for accommodation, removal and storage. Home owners have 30 business days after entering the contract, or before work starts (whichever is earlier), to elect this optional cover. Confirm the current figures against the QBCC before relying on them.
• Duplexes: pre-completion cover is reduced to $100,000 standard or $150,000 optional per unit, while post-completion defect cover remains $200,000 standard or $300,000 optional. Confirm the current figures against the QBCC before relying on them.
• Common property: defect cover is $200,000 per unit capped at $1m under standard cover, or $300,000 per unit capped at $1.3m under optional cover. Confirm the current figures against the QBCC before relying on them.
• Entitlement reductions: the home owner’s entitlement is reduced if they pay more than the insurable deposit, pay ahead of schedule, or the contract is underpriced by more than 30 per cent.

What counts as a structural defect

A structural defect includes footing or slab movement, water penetration, work that makes the home uninhabitable, or any defect adversely affecting health or safety. That definition is what pulls a defect into the longer cover period below, so it is worth knowing where the line sits before you argue about it years after handover.

A note on currency: the figures above, including the $3,300 threshold, the $200,000 and $300,000 limits, the accommodation sub-limits, the duplex and common-property figures, and the cover periods that follow, are drawn from the QBCC product disclosure and may change between versions. Confirm the current figure against the QBCC before relying on it, and treat this as general information, not legal or financial advice; how the scheme applies to a specific contract is a conversation for the QBCC and your own advisers.

Nothing in software changes the scheme. VIABUILD does not provide, arrange, price or advise on insurance, and it does not deal with the QBCC. What software changes is whether the records the scheme runs on exist when you need them. Every pressure point above is documentary: proving what the contract price was after variations, showing what was built and when, holding the certificates and inspection records across a cover period measured in years, and answering a defect or completion claim from files rather than memory.

A platform that documents variations as they are approved, keeps costs and claims tied to the job, and holds the job’s documents in one place is quietly building your evidence file as a by-product of normal work. And because the scheme exists partly to catch owners when a contractor goes under, keeping cost and cashflow visible so the business stays solvent is its own kind of protection, one that keeps you out of the scenario the scheme is there for.