Life insurance claim statistics, and what they hide

People reasonably want a number that answers “will they actually pay”. In New Zealand that number is harder to come by than it should be. There is no single mandatory claims report covering every insurer on a common definition, so what circulates is a mixture of individual insurer disclosures, distributor statistics and industry commentary.

That does not make the numbers useless. It makes them evidence rather than proof, and it means the definitions behind them deserve as much attention as the figures themselves.

Two published sources are worth knowing. LifeDirect reported paying more than $51 million across over 2,200 successful claims between 2020 and 2025 — a useful reminder that the great majority of claims succeed. And on the other side of the ledger, in the year to 30 June 2025 the IFSO Scheme received 4,293 consumer approaches and accepted 600 disputes for investigation, with life, health and disability insurance accounting for 29% of them, as reported by Insurance Business NZ.

A claims-paid figure is a fraction, and almost all the argument is about the denominator. Before you compare two insurers’ numbers, ask these questions of both.

• What counts as a claim? Some insurers count every notification; others count only claims formally lodged with complete documentation.
• Are withdrawn claims counted? A claim withdrawn once the claimant realises the policy does not respond looks very different depending on how it is classified.
• Does it include all product lines, or only life cover? Trauma and income protection decline rates are structurally higher, because the definitions are more complex.
• Does it cover a single year or a rolling multi-year period? Small insurers have small numbers and volatile percentages.
• Are partial payments counted as paid, declined, or something in between?
• Is the figure by number of claims or by dollar value? These can point in different directions.

These are the details that decide whether the cover does what you expected. Read them before you compare on price.

• Whether a quoted figure covers all product lines or only life cover.
• Whether the period covered is long enough for the numbers to mean anything.
• Whether the publisher is the insurer, a distributor, or an independent body.
• Whether declines for non-disclosure are separated from declines for definition.
• Whether the same insurer publishes consistently year to year, or only in good years.
• Whether a low dispute count reflects good claims handling or simply low awareness of the schemes.

Every New Zealand insurer writes how life insurance claims work to its own wording, and the words are where the money is. Two policies that look identical on price can pay very differently when it matters. Closing that gap is the entire job of an adviser.

• An adviser sees claim outcomes across insurers in practice, which is a different and more current signal than a published annual figure.
• They know which insurers are straightforward to deal with at claim time and which require chasing — that is not in any statistic.
• They can weigh a definition difference against a headline percentage, which is the trade-off that actually matters.
• They will tell you where an insurer’s published numbers exclude something material.

There are three ways to buy life cover in New Zealand, and they are not equivalent. You can buy direct from one insurer, which means you see one product range and one underwriting appetite. You can buy through your bank, which usually means a single insurer’s product sold under the bank’s brand, often with narrower definitions. Or you can go through an adviser, who quotes several insurers at once and is required to put your interests first.

The premium you pay is the same either way. Insurers build adviser commission into their pricing whether or not an adviser is involved, so going direct does not get you a discount — it just removes the person whose job is to argue your corner at application and at claim time.

• An adviser can see which insurer is currently taking your health history on standard terms, and which one will load or exclude it.
• An adviser can structure cover across two insurers if that produces a better outcome than putting everything with one.
• An adviser handles the underwriting back-and-forth, and is the person who chases the claim when a family is least able to.
• An adviser has to document why the recommendation suits you, which is a written record you can hold them to.

We are a referral service, not an insurer. We do not quote premiums and we do not sell policies. What we do is put you in front of one licensed New Zealand adviser who can compare the market properly.

1. 1

   You tell us what you are looking at

   The form takes about a minute. Nobody asks for your medical history on a web form — that conversation happens with the adviser, properly, and only once you have decided to proceed.

2. 2

   An adviser calls you

   A licensed New Zealand adviser talks through your situation: who depends on you, what you owe, what you already have in place, and what you are actually worried about.

3. 3

   They compare the market

   The adviser quotes across the major insurers, checks which of them will take your health history on the best terms, and puts the options side by side in writing.

4. 4

   You decide, in your own time

   There is no obligation and no cost to you. If the answer is that you already have enough cover, a good adviser will tell you that.