How to compare health insurance across insurers

Health insurance pays for private medical treatment. In a system where the public service covers acute need but rations elective and diagnostic capacity, that is mostly about time — how quickly you get scanned, seen and operated on — rather than about whether you get treated at all.

It behaves differently from every other product on this site. Life, trauma and TPD cover are long contracts you buy once. Health cover is effectively an annual product that renews, with premiums recalculated each year against your age and against medical cost inflation, which has run well ahead of general inflation for years.

That difference drives the comparison. With life cover you are buying a promise decades out and the wording matters most. With health cover you are buying this year’s access and next year’s price, and the two questions that matter most are what is actually covered and how steeply the premium climbs.

The pre-existing condition trap

Health insurers generally exclude conditions you had before the policy started. That is not unreasonable, but it has a consequence people discover too late: once you have been on a policy for some years and have developed something, switching insurers means that condition becomes pre-existing at the new insurer and is excluded there.

So the practical effect is that health insurance rewards buying early and staying put, while punishing shopping around later. That is the opposite of how life cover behaves, and it is worth knowing when you are 30 and choosing your first policy, not when you are 55 and unhappy with a premium increase.

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

• Whether non-Pharmac drug cover has an annual limit, a lifetime limit, or both.
• Whether the policy requires prior approval before treatment, and how long approval typically takes.
• Whether specialist consultations are covered only when they lead to surgery.
• How the wording defines pre-existing, and whether exclusions can be reviewed after a period of good health.
• Whether the excess is per claim or per year, which changes the cost of a year with several claims.
• What happens to premiums and cover at 65 and beyond, when you are most likely to use the policy.

Every New Zealand insurer writes health 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.

• Health wordings differ on sub-limits and exclusions in ways that summaries do not describe, and an adviser reads them.
• Where you are considering switching, an adviser can establish in writing what would become pre-existing before you commit.
• An adviser can model premium behaviour to 65 and 75 rather than quoting only this year’s price.
• Health cover, trauma cover and income protection overlap in people’s minds and not in practice — an adviser separates them.
• An adviser can structure a higher excess to keep a comprehensive policy affordable rather than dropping to base cover.

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.