CHOICE Awards 2012

The starting point for this award was the views of 2200 members canvassed via our insurance satisfaction survey. We quickly got the message that Suncorp customers are among the most satisfied when it comes to home and contents and car insurance products. 

Suncorp has been a strong performer year-on-year in our regular reviews, and it’s a provider we singled out as an exception to our 2011 Shonky for the industry. More...

Fees are often the deal breaker when it comes to our assessment of financial service products – and that’s why our travel money award winner was chosen from the credit card rather than the prepaid card category.

For this award, we concentrated strictly on which product will cost you the least if you use it correctly. Locking in the best exchange rate can save you money, but only if you accurately predict the rate changes. Card fees, on the other hand, are a certainty, so the fee-free 28 Degrees MasterCard came out on top. More...

We felt it was time to recognise that, when it comes to fridges, Fisher & Paykel consistently delivers a good product. This award was based on the past two years of CHOICE fridge testing across many brands and models. 

It is a combination of the average overall score of the tested models, ratio of recommended to tested models and results from our annual reliability survey – which had almost 7000 respondents this year. More...

CHOICE has been testing vacuum cleaners for many years. We assess how well they clean dirt and pet hair from carpet, edges, corners, whether they’ll scratch hard floors, how noisy they are and how easy they are to use. 

Of the 12 Miele vacuum cleaners we’ve tested in the past three years, we’ve recommended 10 to buy. The brand also tops our reliability survey, making Miele a very worthy winner. More...

The Breville Fast Slow Cooker is a one-pot wonder – it’s four appliances in one. You can sear your meat and vegetables in it ready for a long slow cook and have a meal ready when you get home. 

Or, you can cook comfort foods in a quarter of the usual time. It also steams vegetables and rice, and is so easy to use, with comprehensive instructions and recipes. More...

Car share schemes, which allow people who need occasional (or regular) access to a vehicle to hire one locally at a reasonable price and with solid insurance, have been around for a few years. 

But with an expanding fleet, deals with councils that have seen street parking allocated to car share vehicles and more and more car share pods being installed in apartment developments, the schemes are making a real difference in many people’s lives. More...

Over his career, and then in retirement, Dr Ken Harvey has campaigned on behalf of consumers to improve the regulations for the use and promotion of therapeutic goods. 

Ken really put himself on the line when he went up against weight loss company SensaSlim last year. When he lodged a complaint about their ads with the TGA, SensaSlim threatened to sue him unless he retracted his comments. 

He refused, so they sued. After many months of stressful legal goings-on and great personal expense (though costs were ultimately met by supporters) he won his case. The product was eventually delisted and the principals prosecuted – a real victory for consumers. More...