AI Search Visibility: Australian General Insurance Brands - May 2026 Report

We Tracked 20 Insurance Brands Across 34,278 Conversations. Here's Who AI Search Actually Recommends.

Australian General Insurance Brands - AI Visibility (May 2026)

Your brand might rank on Google. But does ChatGPT even know you exist?

We monitored 20 Australian insurance brands across 34,278 real consumer conversations on both Google AI Overviews and ChatGPT in May 2026.

The goal: find out which brands show up when people ask AI for insurance advice.

Allianz leads with 13,437 total mentions. NRMA is right behind at 12,524. Budget Direct rounds out the top three with 10,708, and that is the May headline: Budget Direct has climbed into the top three on total AI visibility.

Then comes the drop. Brands like GIO (2,758), Shannons (2,049) and CGU (1,019) sit well below half the visibility of the leaders. And at the bottom, real brands with real customers are close to invisible in AI search: Ozicare has 62 total mentions, Coles Insurance 517, Qantas Insurance 895.

And the platforms do not agree. Budget Direct leads on Google AI Overviews (8,556 mentions) while Allianz leads on ChatGPT (5,461). Budget Direct gets four times more mentions on Google than on ChatGPT. The gap between Google visibility and AI visibility is not small. It is structural.

Brand	Google AI Overview	ChatGPT	Total
Allianz	7,976	5,461	13,437
NRMA	7,188	5,336	12,524
Budget Direct	8,556	2,152	10,708
AAMI	6,156	3,575	9,731
RACV	3,766	2,612	6,378
QBE	4,428	1,630	6,058
RACQ	4,189	1,536	5,725
YouI	3,250	2,124	5,374
Suncorp	3,533	1,593	5,126
GIO	2,099	659	2,758
Shannons	1,554	495	2,049
Bingle	703	592	1,295
ING	1,062	201	1,263
CGU	554	465	1,019
Qantas	811	84	895
APIA	496	93	589
Coles	457	60	517
Ozicare	57	5	62
RAC	5	36	41
RAA	7	5	12

The Biggest Changes: March to May 2026

We ran the same audit in March. 2 months later, the board has moved. Here is what changed.

1. There is a new number one. In May, Allianz overtook NRMA (Leader in Mar’26) taking the top spot with 13,437 mentions (+7.7%), while NRMA stayed flat at 12,524. This proves that a brand cannot take it’s pole position for granted on AI Search.

2. Budget Direct in May showed the most improvement over it’s March performance. Up +9.7% to 10,708 mentions, climbing from #4 to #3 overall and becoming the most visible brand on Google AI Overviews (8,556 mentions, up from 7,434 in March). The caution: its ChatGPT share slipped from 23.9% to 20.1%, so the Google dependence deepened.

3. AAMI and smaller brands are losing visibility. AAMI is down -18.1% (from 11,878 to 9,731), sliding from #3 to #4. Among smaller brands the slide is steeper: Bingle -30.8%, GIO -29.3%, CGU -27.8%.

4. ChatGPT started citing, a lot more. In March, ChatGPT's most-cited source was Canstar with just 232 citations. In May, Finder (902) and Canstar (901) both cleared 900, roughly four times March's volume, and Finder took the #1 spot. Reddit grew from 147 to 387 citations.

5. The AI source pool is consolidating. The engines cited 10,777 unique domains in March but only 8,488 in May, a 21% contraction in who gets a voice. Fewer sources means it requires higher stakes for being one of them. We anticipate that both publisher and brand sites will now focus on building “trust authority” to be cited. 

6. Brands are surfacing more often in deep conversations. Zero-brand Conversation answers fell from 84.1% to 82.4% on ChatGPT and from 60.6% to 55.5% on Google.In our March report we had pointed this out as an opportunity and now we see brands taking advantage of the whitespace.  The window is closing: every month, more of the long tail gets claimed. 

7. The engines disagree most of the time. Top-brand agreement between Google and ChatGPT rose from 23.7% in March to 27.9% in May. Even so, in roughly seven of ten head-to-head queries the two engines still recommend different brands.

Brand	March'26 total mentions	May'26 total mentions	Absolute change	% change
Budget Direct	9,765	10,708	943	9.66%
Allianz	12,477	13,437	960	7.69%
QBE	5,853	6,058	205	3.50%
NRMA	12,522	12,524	2	0.02%
Youi	5,407	5,374	-33	-0.61%
ING	1,286	1,263	-23	-1.79%
RACQ	6,017	5,725	-292	-4.85%
RACV	6,779	6,378	-401	-5.92%
Suncorp	5,852	5,126	-726	-12.41%
Shannons	2,447	2,049	-398	-16.26%
AAMI	11,878	9,731	-2147	-18.08%
CGU	1,412	1,019	-393	-27.83%
GIO	3899	2,758	-1141	-29.26%
Bingle	1,871	1,295	-576	-30.79%

Myth: Google AI Overview Visibility Translates into ChatGPT Visibility

Out of 20 Australian insurance brands we track, several are effectively invisible on ChatGPT. Qantas Insurance gets just 9.4% of its total visibility from ChatGPT. Coles Insurance gets just 11.6% of its total visibility from ChatGPT. APIA gets just 15.8% of its total visibility from ChatGPT.

These brands show up on Google. They have websites, they run ads. But when a consumer asks ChatGPT "what is the best car insurance in Australia", they do not get mentioned.

On the other end, Bingle is the healthiest brand on ChatGPT: 46% of its total visibility comes from it. CGU (46%) and NRMA (43%) also hold a real presence on both platforms.

Budget Direct is the most dramatic divergence story in the market. It is the most visible brand on Google AI Overviews, yet only 20.1% of its visibility comes from ChatGPT. For every five times Budget Direct appears across both platforms, four are on Google and one is on ChatGPT.

If your brand is strong on Google but weak on ChatGPT, you have a visibility gap that is only going to widen. The fix is not more SEO. It is a fundamentally different content strategy.

Brand	Google AI Overviews	ChatGPT	Total	ChatGPT share %
Budget Direct	8,556	2,152	10,708	20.1%
Allianz	7,976	5,461	13,437	40.6%
NRMA	7,188	5,336	12,524	42.6%
AAMI	6,156	3,575	9,731	36.7%
QBE	4428	1630	6,058	26.9%
RACQ	4,189	1,536	5,725	26.8%
RACV	3,766	2,612	6,378	41%
Suncorp	3,533	1,593	5,126	31.1%
Youi	3,250	2,124	5,374	39.5%
GIO	2,099	659	2,758	23.9%
Shannons	1,554	495	2,049	24.2%
ING	1,062	201	1,263	15.9%
Qantas Insurance	811	84	895	9.4%
Bingle	703	592	1,295	45.7%
CGU	554	465	1,019	45.6%
APIA	496	93	589	15.8%
Coles Insurance	457	60	517	11.6%
Ozicare	57	5	62	8.1%
RAA Insurance	7	5	12	41.7%
RAC Insurance	5	36	41	87.8%

Trust Authority : Most Cited Sites

SEO has always been about earning trust from Google. But there is a new gatekeeper, and it does not care about your backlink profile.

Canstar is the single most cited domain: 16,838 total citations across both platforms, 15,937 of them on Google AI Overviews. It is the undisputed king of traditional search authority for insurance content.

But ChatGPT tells a different story. Finder (902 citations) and Canstar (901) are both equally trusted by ChatGPT as a source. The surprise is third place among third parties: Reddit, with 387 citations, a forum, not a comparison site. Forbes comes in at 256 and moneysmart.gov.au, the government's financial literacy site, at 134.

The comparison-site effect is real but smaller than you might expect: Canstar, Compare the Market, Finder, iSelect, Choice and friends account for 16.1% of all citations. Brand-owned sites make up 26.5%, and the rest comes from third-party editorial, media, government and community sources.

Here is the insight that matters. If you want ChatGPT to recommend your brand, being on your own website is not enough. You need to be mentioned positively on the sites AI trusts. This is not link building. It is reputation building across the sources that train and inform AI models.

Domain	Google citations	ChatGPT citations	Total citations
canstar.com.au	15,937	901	16,838
budgetdirect.com.au	13,071	167	13,238
comparethemarket.com.au	11,337	89	11,426
finder.com.au	10,456	902	11,358
allianz.com.au	9,827	277	10,104
nationalcover.com.au	8,443	138	8,581
nrma.com.au	7,586	407	7,993
racv.com.au	6,282	193	6,475
choice.com.au	6,143	204	6,347
qbe.com	6,179	63	6,242
aami.com.au	5,990	53	6,043
youi.com.au	5,386	182	5,568
suncorp.com.au	5,232	171	5,403
racq.com.au	5,186	94	5,280
moneysmart.gov.au	5,098	134	5,232

Car Insurance vs Pet Insurance: Where AI Sends You Is Very Different.

Not all insurance product lines are created equal, at least not in the eyes of AI.

The competetive product categories:

• Car insurance dominates with 22,777 total brand mentions across ChatGPT and Google.

• Home & contents follows at 20,591.

• Motorcycle comes third at 16,376.

  These are crowded, competitive spaces where the big brands fight hard for visibility.

Pet insurance sits near the bottom with just 2,457 mentions and life insurance is even lower at 1,283. These product lines are underserved, with fewer brands competing and far more room for one brand to own the conversation.

Brand concentration varies wildly by product line too. NRMA leads car insurance with 3,238 mentions. QBE leads motorcycle with 2,896. Allianz owns travel (3,941), and Budget Direct owns pet (940).

Source diversity paints an even sharper picture. When someone asks about car insurance, Google pulls from 2,101 unique domains; ChatGPT uses 481. For home insurance it is 2,600 vs 355. Fewer sources means fewer brands get a voice.

And the comparison-site effect differs by product line: pet insurance leans hardest on aggregators (19.9% of citations) while roadside assistance is the most direct, brand-to-consumer conversation (5.2%).

Some product lines are a trench battle. Others are an open field. Know which one you are in before you plan your next content push.

Brand	Car	Home & Contents	Motorcycle	Roadside	Other	Travel	Pet	Life	Row total
Allianz	2,762	3,447	928	800	1,518	3,941	143	308	13,847
NRMA	3,238	3,731	2,536	1,086	1,061	732	25	49	12,458
Budget Direct	3,185	2,738	1,413	488	766	857	640	192	10,279
AAMI	2,600	2,799	1,361	520	906	56	555	243	9,040
RACV	1,846	928	1,207	1,708	494	375	26	16	6,600
QBE	691	1,572	2,896	18	548	253	7	51	6,036
RACQ	1,462	962	996	1,843	315	300	387	21	6,286
Youi	1,498	1,252	1,648	184	500	21	242	37	5,382
Suncorp	1,670	1,360	713	76	443	42	55	283	4,642
GIO	1,050	952	344	91	231	4	21	11	2,704
Shannons	284		1,678	45	16			1	2,024
Bingle	988	142	88	24	49		3		1,294
ING	678	313	428		10	1	25	8	1,463
CGU	144	424	220	4	183	3	14	20	1,012
Qantas Insurance	312	398	3		34	146			893
APIA	193	260	71	9	17	1	5	30	586
Coles Insurance	252	226	4	5	17	2	8	1	515
Ozicare	2	60							62
RAC Insurance	13	5	5	5	6		2	1	37
RAA Insurance	1	3	1	1	6				12

Is AI Creating Brand Monopolies in Insurance? The Data Says Yes.

Google gives you options. ChatGPT gives you a shortlist, and the shortlist is getting shorter.

On ChatGPT, just 3 brands account for 50% of all insurance mentions. 5 brands control 60%, 7 control 75% and 9 control 90%. If you are not in the top tier, you are fighting over scraps of visibility.

Google AI Overviews is more democratic, but not by much: 4 brands make up 50% of mentions, 5 reach 60%, 8 reach 75% and 11 cover 90%. The long tail is longer; more brands get a seat at the table.

And the two platforms still mostly disagree. Across 4,380 queries where both platforms named brands, Google and ChatGPT agreed on the top brand only 27.9% of the time, up from 23.7% in March, the two biggest answer engines in the world still told consumers different things about insurance in roughly 72% of head-to-head queries.

70% of long tail insurance questions on AI Search mention Zero Brands. That Is Whitespace Opportunity.

We tracked 34,278 conversation queries and found that the long-tail, specific questions where real consumers actually require guidance e.g. "how to claim pet insurance for overseas pets" and "what car insurance discounts are available for new cars", 70% of those queries returned zero brand mentions. 

This is not a problem. This is an opportunity. Every one of those brandless GoogleAI Overview or ChatGPT response is a gap in the market, proving a place where the right content, structured the right way, published on the right sources, could put your brand into the AI's answer.

First mover advantage in AI search is real. And right now, most of the field is wide open.

Google and ChatGPT don't recommend the same brand for a query most of the time. Here's What That Means.

When users ask  Google AI Overviews and ChatGPT the same insurance question. You will get different answers most of the time. The best performaing brands like Allianz, NRMA achieve consistent recommendation for a query across both Google AI Overview and ChatGPT only in the 20%-25% range.

This is a challenge and an opportunity. For large brands who have spent the last decade spending time on dominating a single search platform , they now face a landscape where consumers expect brand presence on multiple search engines ; brands are required to create a consistent message across all the AI search engines. A typical insurance consumer is researching on both Google AI Overview and ChatGPT.

This expands the surface area for brands to present themselves in the consumers buying journey there by increasing the opportunity to grow brand mindshare.

The dual combination of expanded opportunity surface area coupled with divergence in brand recommendations from the different AI Search engines is the biggest opportunity for brands.

Brand	Agreed queries (brand mentioned in AI response on both engines)	Not-agreed queries	Only Google	Only ChatGPT	Total queries	Agreed %
Allianz	1884	5622	3397	2225	7506	25.1%
NRMA	1446	5360	3215	2145	6806	21.2%
Budget Direct	799	5568	4839	729	6367	12.5%
AAMI	923	4761	3096	1665	5684	16.2%
RACV	476	3317	2118	1199	3793	12.5%
QBE	483	2841	2057	784	3324	14.5%
RACQ	472	2707	2145	562	3179	14.8%
Suncorp	255	2914	2108	806	3169	8.0%
Youi	474	2556	1579	977	3030	15.6%
GIO	91	1857	1478	379	1948	4.7%
Shannons	152	869	679	190	1021	14.9%
ING	38	713	621	92	751	5.1%
CGU	41	704	381	323	745	5.5%
Qantas Insurance	18	726	670	56	744	2.4%
Bingle	72	628	295	333	700	10.3%
Coles Insurance	11	416	379	37	427	2.6%
APIA	4	378	320	58	382	1.0%
Ozicare	0	50	46	4	50	0%
RAC Insurance	0	40	5	35	40	0%
RAA Insurance	0	11	7	4	11	0%