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Partners Life vs nib
One is an adviser-distributed insurer built around risk cover. The other is a health insurer that also offers life and living cover. The right comparison starts with which problem you are trying to solve.
Last reviewed 4 September 2026 · Written and checked by the Best Life Insurance editorial team · How we get paid
In short
- Partners Life distributes the full risk range through advisers; nib is primarily a health insurer that also offers life and living cover.
- Health cover pays for treatment. Risk cover replaces money. Most households need both, but not from the same place by default.
- Income protection is the cover most working households need first, and it is not offered by every insurer.
- Simplified risk cover sold alongside health insurance often carries broader pre-existing exclusions.
- Maximum sums insured on products distributed alongside health cover are sometimes lower.
- Compare the definitions, not the brand you already have a relationship with.
What this is, plainly
Partners Life is a licensed New Zealand life insurer distributing the full personal risk range — life, trauma, TPD, income protection and health — through Registered Financial Service Providers. nib operates in New Zealand primarily as a health insurer, with a range that also extends to life and living or serious-illness cover.
People arrive at this comparison from opposite directions. Some already hold a health policy and are offered life cover on top of it. Others are being advised on risk cover and asked whether to add health. Both are reasonable routes, but the order changes what you notice.
The discipline worth imposing is to judge each product on its own terms. Ask what happens to your household if you cannot work for a year, and separately what happens if you need surgery next month. Those are different questions with different answers, and the best product for each is often at a different company.
The six things that actually differ
Six comparisons. The first three are about which cover you need; the last three are about the wordings.
| What differs | What to ask | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Which risk you are insuring | If I could only afford one, would my household be hurt more by an unfunded operation or by a year without income? | It settles the order of purchase, which matters more than the choice of insurer. |
| Income protection availability | Is income protection offered, on what definitions, and how does the offset clause treat ACC? | For most working households this is the cover that carries everything else, including the other premiums. |
| Underwriting basis | Is the risk cover fully underwritten or simplified, and does a general pre-existing exclusion apply? | Simplified moves the health assessment from application time — where you find out in writing — to claim time. |
| Maximum sums insured | What is the highest sum insured available, and is it enough for my mortgage plus income replacement? | Products distributed alongside health cover sometimes cap below what a household actually needs. |
| Trauma and TPD definitions | How are the major trauma conditions defined, is own-occupation TPD available, and when does it convert? | A serious-illness benefit and a full trauma product are not the same thing, though the marketing can read alike. |
| Servicing and claims | Who handles a claim, which dispute resolution scheme applies, and what does the process look like from my side? | The company you deal with day to day is not always the one that will assess a risk claim. |
Not sure what cover you actually need?
That is the question an adviser is there to answer. Tell us your situation and a licensed New Zealand adviser will compare the market and come back with a written recommendation — including where you can cut cover you do not need.
No cost to you and no obligation. General information only — not personalised financial advice.
What to watch for
These are the details that decide whether the cover does what you expected. Read them before you compare on price.
- Whether a benefit described as serious illness cover is a full trauma product or a narrower list.
- Whether health cover and risk cover are underwritten separately, which they are.
- Whether cancelling one policy affects the price of the other.
- Whether the quote assumes a stepped premium structure that becomes unaffordable in your late fifties.
- Whether the sums insured have been sized against your actual mortgage and dependants rather than a round number.
Where an adviser makes a difference
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 adviser quotes both insurers on matched terms — same sum insured, same structure, same waiting and benefit periods — which is the only way the numbers mean anything.
- Where a health history is not straightforward, an adviser can pre-assess it anonymously with both insurers before any formal application exists, so an unfavourable answer never lands on your record.
- Policy fees and multi-benefit discounts mean the cheaper per-benefit rate is often not the cheaper household total. An adviser models the total.
- An adviser will tell you which cover to buy first, which is a more valuable answer than which insurer to buy it from.
- Where a bundled product would exclude a condition, an adviser can test whether full underwriting elsewhere covers it outright.
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.
What happens if you get in touch
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
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
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
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
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.
Frequently asked questions
Should I buy health insurance or life insurance first?
It depends on your household. If losing your income for a year would be catastrophic and an operation would merely be inconvenient, insure the income first. If the reverse is true, start with health cover. Most advisers work in the order income, then debt, then a lump sum for the family — people usually buy in the opposite order because life cover is the product they have heard of.
Is nib’s living cover the same as full trauma insurance?
Serious-illness and living cover benefits vary in how many conditions they list and how those conditions are defined, and they are not automatically equivalent to a full trauma product from a risk insurer. Compare the definitions of cancer, heart attack and stroke, and check whether severity-based partial payments and a buy-back are offered.
Can I keep my nib health policy and buy risk cover elsewhere?
Yes, and it is very common. There is no requirement to hold them together and no penalty beyond losing any multi-policy discount. Splitting lets you take the health wording you want and the risk wording you want, rather than accepting a compromise on one to get a discount on the other.
Does Partners Life offer health insurance too?
Partners Life’s New Zealand range spans life, trauma, TPD, income protection and health cover. Whether its health wording suits you is a separate question from whether its risk wordings do — compare health policies against health policies on cover tier, non-Pharmac drug limits, excess structure and how premiums behave with age.
Which insurer will cover my pre-existing condition?
That cannot be answered from published material, because underwriting appetite is not published and changes as reinsurance treaties are renegotiated. A pre-assessment through an adviser puts an anonymised summary of your history to several insurers at once and gets indicative terms back without creating a formal application record.