Comparison sites versus a broker

Price comparison sites do something genuinely useful. They show that the spread between insurers for identical cover is large — commonly around 30% between cheapest and dearest on published New Zealand comparisons — and they stop you accepting the first number you are given.

What they cannot do is the part that determines your outcome. Every quote an aggregator shows is a standard rate: what that insurer charges someone of your age and smoking status with no adverse health history and a standard occupation classification. The moment your history produces a loading, an exclusion or a decline, every number on the page is wrong, and the ranking is void because loadings are applied to different base rates at different insurers.

That is not a flaw in the engineering but a limit of the category. An underwriting decision depends on GP notes, specialist reports, test results and a reinsurer’s current appetite. No software gets at that from a date of birth and a smoking question.

How to use an aggregator well

1. 1Use it to establish the range. If the spread across a panel for your profile is $200 a year, that is useful context for any single quote you are shown.
2. 2Check the panel size. A three-insurer comparison and a nine-insurer comparison answer different questions, and a site cannot rank insurers it does not carry.
3. 3Check the profile. Rankings reshuffle by age and smoking status — a table built on a 30-year-old non-smoker tells you very little if you are 55 and smoke.
4. 4Check whether quotes are before or after discounts, consistently. Healthy-lifestyle, member and first-year discounts are applied differently and can flip an order.
5. 5Check how the site is paid. Referral fees, commissions and lead sales are all legitimate models, but they can shape panels and presentation. It should be disclosed.
6. 6Then stop. Once you know the range and the shortlist, the remaining questions are underwriting and wording questions, and those are answered by a person.

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

• That every quoted price assumes standard terms and no adverse health history.
• How many insurers the panel actually contains, and which ones are missing.
• Whether the compared products are equivalent — same premium structure, expiry age, indexation setting, and standalone versus accelerated trauma.
• Whether complex products like income protection are compared on benefit and definition, or only on monthly price.
• How the site is remunerated, and whether that is disclosed.
• The date the data was last updated, since rates change several times a year.

Every New Zealand insurer writes life and living cover 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 aggregator compares prices; an adviser compares prices, wordings and underwriting appetite — the third of which decides most outcomes.
• Where a condition would attract a loading, an adviser can find the insurer whose reinsurer takes the most favourable view.
• Complex products do not compare well on price. An adviser compares the offset clause, the conversion age and the definitions.
• An adviser can quote structures a comparison engine cannot express, such as split level and stepped cover or cover across two insurers.
• At claim, there is no aggregator. There is you, the insurer, and whoever you have on your side.

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.