A near-seven-percentage-point rise in self-reported drug-impaired driving among young Queenslanders in a single year is creating a claims and coverage problem that flows directly through the state’s motor insurance market – and into the earnings of Australia’s largest insurer.
RACQ’s 2026 Annual Road Safety Survey found that 22.8% of Queenslanders aged 18-24 admitted to driving under the influence of drugs in the past year, up from 15.9% in 2025. More than one in four – 28% – admitted to driving without a seatbelt, a 9% increase on the prior year. Speeding remained widespread at 63.2%, though that figure edged down slightly from 2025.
RACQ executive manager road safety Josh Cooney said the data pointed to a deteriorating pattern. “Young drivers continue to be overrepresented in serious and fatal crashes on our roads, and these latest results are worrying,” he said.
He cited 2025 figures showing P-plate drivers and riders were involved in 10% of deaths on Queensland roads. “Every time someone drives without a seatbelt, speeds, or gets behind the wheel intoxicated, they are putting their life and the lives of others at risk,” Cooney said.
For brokers placing motor cover on young Queensland drivers, the drug-impaired driving figure carries direct commercial consequences. Suncorp’s car insurance guidance, updated June 2025, states that cover is voided where a driver is behind the wheel with a blood alcohol concentration over the legal limit or while under the influence of drugs. The Queensland Law Handbook, updated May 2025, confirms this approach is market-wide: most comprehensive and third-party property policies exclude cover where a driver was under the influence of drugs or alcohol at the time of a crash.
Age-based excesses add another layer. Suncorp says an age excess applies to claims where the driver is under 25 and is charged in addition to the standard excess. The amount depends on the policy, meaning young drivers can face a higher out-of-pocket cost when a claim attracts an excess.
When a denial does follow, the evidentiary standard at the Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA) is well established. In a 2024 determination, AFCA upheld an insurer’s denial of a comprehensive motor vehicle claim involving a driver whose blood alcohol concentration exceeded the legal limit, finding the insurer had established on the balance of probabilities that the driver was impaired and that impairment contributed to the loss. The same evidentiary logic applies to drug impairment: the insurer bears the onus of proof, and the exclusion holds when backed by forensic and police evidence.
That creates a specific problem for drug-impaired driving cases. Unlike alcohol, which is routinely tested at crash scenes and produces documented readings, drug impairment is far less consistently recorded. Without mandatory crash-scene drug testing – which RACQ is calling for – the evidentiary record that makes a denial defensible at AFCA is not guaranteed.
The Queensland government’s StreetSmarts program, citing the Department of Transport and Main Roads’ 2023-24 Road Crash Report, notes that young drivers make up around 14% of Queensland’s licence holders but are involved in approximately 28% of road deaths.
RACQ’s road safety advocacy data puts Queensland’s 2025 road toll at 308 deaths – the highest in 16 years.
If the self-reported behavioural data in RACQ’s 2026 survey reflects actual on-road conduct, underwriting parameters built on prior-year loss experience may be understating current exposure in the under-25 segment.
IAG completed the $855 million acquisition of 90% of RACQ’s insurance underwriting business in September 2025, entering a 25-year exclusive distribution arrangement. RACQ retains a 10% equity stake. IAG manages claims and underwriting; RACQ maintains the brand and member relationships.
Following the acquisition, IAG upgraded its FY26 gross written premium growth guidance to approximately 10% – up from a previous low-to-mid single-digit forecast – directly attributing the revision to the inclusion of RACQ Insurance from September 2025.
That Queensland motor book now sits inside IAG’s earnings. A continued rise in drug-impaired driving among the 18-24 cohort is a claims frequency problem for IAG’s underwriting team – not only a public policy concern for RACQ’s advocacy unit.
That structural split is worth noting. Under the alliance, RACQ has retained its advocacy function separately from the insurance business – calling on government to increase enforcement on roads that IAG now prices and underwrites. Whether that separation remains clean as the relationship matures is a question the broader market may return to.
Queensland’s compulsory third-party (CTP) scheme – regulated by the Motor Accident Insurance Commission – covers injury liability only and does not price by driver age or behaviour. Queensland Treasury confirmed CTP premiums for Class 1 vehicles rose between $4 and $19 from October 2025, with Queensland retaining the lowest rates for sedans on mainland Australia.
The behavioural risk documented in RACQ’s survey falls almost entirely outside the regulated CTP framework. It sits with the comprehensive and third-party property market – and with the brokers placing that business.
RACQ has called for expanded random breath testing, more roadside drug testing, and mandatory drug testing at every crash attended by police. “We know there is an ongoing recruitment drive for more police, but we need details on how this translates to more road safety enforcement hours,” Cooney said.
For the insurance market, that ask has a commercial dimension beyond road safety. Systematic crash-scene drug testing would generate the forensic record on which exclusion decisions can be made and defended. Until it exists, brokers placing motor cover for young Queensland drivers are managing a cohort whose self-reported risk profile is moving in one direction – and whose coverage protections have an evidentiary gap at the claims stage.
