Are You Overpaying on Household Bills? How to Check Electricity, Gas, Health Insurance, NBN and Mobile (2026)

By Mitchell Shad  ·  30 September 2026  ·  10 min read

For most households the biggest budget wins aren't in the coffee or the streaming services. They're in five bills that renew themselves without anyone reading them: electricity, gas, private health insurance, internet and mobile. Each one tends to drift upward year after year, and in most cases the same product costs less from someone else, or from the same provider on a different plan.

The short answer: to check whether you're overpaying, compare exactly what you have now against what the rest of the market charges for the same thing. For electricity and gas that means your actual usage on the same tariff type. For health insurance it means the same hospital cover, same excess, same people. For internet and mobile it means the same NBN speed or the same data. Do it once a year, and whenever a discount or a fixed term ends. The official comparison tools cover every provider; most commercial comparison sites are paid commissions and don't.

Why bills creep up

Nobody writes to tell you your plan has become expensive. The common ways it happens:

• A discount or introductory price ends. Energy "benefit periods", six-month NBN discounts and first-year insurance prices all end quietly, and the bill steps up.
• Prices are reset once a year. Electricity prices typically change from 1 July. Private health insurance premiums change from 1 April, and in 2026 the average rise was 4.41%, the largest in nine years.
• Old plans get left behind. Providers bring out new, cheaper plans for new customers and leave existing customers where they are.

None of this is dramatic on one bill. Across five bills and a few years, it's often thousands of dollars.

Electricity

What to find on the bill:

• The daily supply charge (cents a day, charged whether you use power or not)
• The usage rate (cents per kWh), and whether it's a single flat rate or time of use (peak, shoulder, off-peak)
• Any controlled load (a separate meter for a hot water system, for example) and its rate
• Your solar feed-in tariff, if you export
• The plan name, and the date any discount or "benefit period" ends
• Your usage for the period in kWh, and the number of days

What to compare against. The only fair comparison is your usage, over the same number of days, on the same tariff type. A time-of-use home compared against flat-rate plans, or a plan with a big conditional "pay on time" discount compared against one without, gives a number that means nothing.

The Default Market Offer. In New South Wales, south-east Queensland and South Australia, the Australian Energy Regulator sets a Default Market Offer: the maximum a retailer can charge a household on a standing offer, and a reference price every advertised plan has to be compared against. For 2026–27 the DMO reference bills for a typical flat-rate household run from roughly $1,970 to $2,740 a year depending on the network area, based on the usage the AER assumes for each area. Victoria has its own equivalent, the Victorian Default Offer. If you've never changed plan, or you can't remember when you did, there's a fair chance you're on or near one of these, and market offers are usually cheaper.

Where to compare the whole market. The government's own comparators list every generally available plan and take no commissions: Energy Made Easy (run by the Australian Energy Regulator, for NSW, the ACT, Queensland, South Australia and Tasmania) and Victorian Energy Compare (for Victoria). In Western Australia and the Northern Territory most households have a single government-owned retailer, so there's little to compare.

Gas

Gas bills have the same two parts: a daily supply charge and a usage rate, often in steps (a higher rate for the first block of use each quarter). If you use only a little gas, for a cooktop, say, the supply charge can be most of the bill, and the question worth asking is whether you need the connection at all. If gas heats your water or your home, compare plans exactly as for electricity: your usage, your days, the same tariff.

Private health insurance

What to find on your policy or renewal notice:

• The hospital cover tier (Gold, Silver, Bronze or Basic, possibly with "plus") and any exclusions or restrictions
• Your excess
• Who's covered (single, couple, family, single parent) and your state
• Whether it's hospital only, extras only, or combined

What to compare against. The same hospital cover (the same list of treatments covered, restricted or excluded), for the same people, in your state, with an excess no higher than yours. Compare listed premiums before the Australian Government Rebate on both sides, because the rebate, any age-based discount and Lifetime Health Cover loading apply the same way whichever fund you're with.

Two things people worry about. Changing funds for the same or lower hospital cover generally doesn't make you serve waiting periods again for services you've already served them on. And Lifetime Health Cover loading stays with you rather than resetting. Check the detail with the new fund before you move, especially for anything you're planning to claim.

Where to compare. privatehealth.gov.au is run by the Private Health Insurance Ombudsman, lists every fund's products, and takes no commissions. Its standard information statements are the easiest way to compare two policies line by line.

NBN and home internet

What to find on the bill:

• Your speed tier (the plan name usually includes it)
• The monthly price, and whether it's an introductory price and when that ends
• Any contract or modem repayment still running

What to compare against. The same speed tier. Almost every provider sells access to the same NBN network, so for most homes the difference between two providers at the same speed is price, customer service and the typical evening speed they report, not the cable in the wall. Introductory discounts commonly run for six months, so the price worth comparing is the ongoing one.

The question to ask first. Do you need the speed you're paying for? A higher tier costs more every month; if nobody in the house has noticed a difference, the tier below is worth considering.

Mobile

What to find on the bill:

• Your monthly price and how much data you actually use (most bills or apps show the last few months)
• Whether you're still paying off a phone, and when that ends
• Whether you're on an old plan the provider no longer sells

What to compare against. A SIM-only plan with enough data for what you actually use. Many smaller providers run on the same Telstra, Optus or TPG networks as the big brands, for less. The most common overpayment is a phone that was paid off months ago on a plan priced to include it.

Home, contents and car insurance

These can't be compared from published prices: every premium is an individual quote. What you can do is note the renewal date, and a few weeks before it, get two or three quotes for the same cover, same excess and same sum insured. Renewal premiums commonly rise even with no claims.

A word on comparison websites

Most commercial comparison sites earn a commission from the providers they list when you sign up through them. The ACCC has raised concerns that comparison sites haven't always been clear about how much of the market they cover, how they're paid and how impartial their results are. That doesn't make a comparison site wrong, but it's worth knowing that "we compare 30 providers" can mean "we compare the providers who pay us". The government comparators above don't take commissions and cover every generally available plan.

The once-a-year bill check

Put it in the calendar, ideally in July (after energy prices reset) and March (before health premiums rise on 1 April):

1. Electricity and gas: usage, days, tariff type, plan name, discount end date. Compare on your usage.
2. Health insurance: tier, exclusions, excess, who's covered. Compare the same hospital cover.
3. NBN: speed tier and the ongoing price after any discount.
4. Mobile: data you actually use, and whether a phone repayment has ended.
5. Home and car insurance: renewal dates, and quotes for the same cover a few weeks before.

Doing it without the spreadsheet

The slow part of all of this is reading five different bills and keying their figures into five different comparison tools. That's what Compound's bill checker does instead: upload an electricity, gas, health insurance, NBN or mobile bill, and it reads the rates off the bill, then prices the same setup across the market from official data (the plans energy retailers publish through the Consumer Data Right, and the Ombudsman's health insurance data). It shows who is cheaper and by how much a year, names the providers without linking to them, and takes no commissions. It sits in the Budget tab, next to the budget the savings end up in.

If you're working on the budget itself, how to budget in Australia and how to track your spending cover the rest of the month.

This is general information only, not financial advice. Prices, plans and rules change; check the current details with the provider before you act. Sources: Australian Energy Regulator, Default Market Offer 2026–27 final determination (May 2026); Australian Government Department of Health, Disability and Ageing, 2026 private health insurance premium round (average increase of 4.41% from 1 April 2026); Private Health Insurance Ombudsman (privatehealth.gov.au); ACCC guidance on comparator websites.