Why your default super insurance shrinks as you get older
Default cover is set by an age scale, and the scale peaks in the early to mid 30s and drops from 40. At AustralianSuper, automatic Death cover is about $180,000 at 35 and $37,000 at 55. Insurers price risk by age, but mortgages and children don't shrink on the same timetable.
If you've checked your cover in a few years and found less, this is probably why. Nobody cut it. The scale did it.
How age-based cover works
Many funds don't give you a fixed amount. They give you cover according to a table: so many units, or so many dollars, at each age. The amount rises through your 20s, flattens in your 30s, and then falls until cover ends in your 60s or 70s.
The reason is price. Insurance gets steeply more expensive as you age, and a default can't cost a fortune. So the fund holds the premium roughly steady and lets the cover fall.
The numbers
Automatic Death and TPD at three funds, at five ages:
| Age | AustralianSuper Death | AustralianSuper TPD | Hostplus Death | Hostplus TPD | Rest Death | Rest TPD |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 25 | $116k | $48k | $57k | $113k | $160k | $100k |
| 35 | $180k | $53k | $141k | $170k | $200k | $80k |
| 45 | $124k | $29k | $93k | $93k | $200k | $60k |
| 55 | $37k | $9k | $39k | $39k | $120k | $30k |
From the funds' insurance guides, rounded. Some funds work from age next birthday.
Notice how different the shapes are. Rest holds Death at $200,000 from 30 to 45 and then falls. AustralianSuper's TPD is already lower at 40 than at 35.
The mismatch
A common life: a mortgage taken out in your early 30s, children at school through your 40s, and the biggest earning years just before 55. That's the time when cover is shrinking. Our sample household, 35 with two young children and a $550,000 mortgage, needs about $1.13 million of Death cover. At 45, even the most generous of these three funds gives around $200,000.
What the cost does
Premiums don't fall as fast as the cover. AustralianSuper's automatic cover costs about $164 a year at 35 and $343 at 55, for a fraction of the cover. The cost by age is here.
What you can do
- Check your current figures on your fund's website or latest statement. Where to look.
- Ask for a higher fixed amount, if the fund offers it. Within the fund's automatic acceptance limit that may need few or no health questions. Above it you'll be underwritten.
- Use life-event increases. Many funds let you raise cover without full underwriting when you marry, have a child or take on a mortgage, within a set window after the event and up to a cap.
- Compare funds. The shape of the scale differs a lot. Someone in their 40s is better off at a fund whose scale holds up.
- Consider cover outside super, where the amount is fixed and doesn't taper by age, but you pay for it.
None of this is a reason to panic. It's a reason to look.
Sources
- Fund insurance guides (AustralianSuper, Hostplus, Rest) as at 22 October 2026, via the miadvice fund comparison
- Premiums: miadvice calculator, 35-year-old male, non-smoker, $85,000, office job, 22 October 2026 data
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General information only, not personal advice. Fund rules and premiums change, usually on 1 July or 1 October. Check the fund's current insurance guide before relying on a figure here.