What other New Zealanders actually buy

There is a natural instinct to want a benchmark. If the average New Zealander with a mortgage and two children holds $X of life cover, you would at least know whether your own number is eccentric. Unfortunately that statistic does not exist in any public New Zealand source we would be prepared to cite, and the figures that circulate online are usually either an insurer’s book average or an overseas number wearing a New Zealand hat.

What we do have is solid market-level data from the Financial Services Council and the Reserve Bank, and published premium comparisons from MoneyHub and Quashed. Together they tell you about the shape of the market — how many people are covered, how concentrated the industry is, what a given profile pays — without pretending to tell you what your neighbours bought.

That distinction is worth insisting on, because a made-up benchmark is worse than no benchmark. It anchors you to a number with no basis and stops you doing the calculation that would give you a real one.

Read those first two rows together. Premiums at a record high while the number of covers falls means the same money is being paid by fewer people. Some of that is repricing and indexation on existing policies; some of it is people leaving the market. It is not a picture of more New Zealanders getting covered.

What a typical profile pays

Where there is reliable published pricing, we will show it. This is the closest thing to a benchmark available, and it is a benchmark for price, not for how much cover people choose to hold.

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

• Any “average cover” figure quoted without a named source and date. It is almost always an insurer’s internal book or an overseas statistic.
• Benchmarking yourself to the market at all — the average New Zealander may well be underinsured, so matching them is not a goal.
• Comparison tables that quote premiums without saying what profile they used or what discounts are excluded.
• Ownership statistics used to imply that 41% is a reasonable target. It is a description, not a recommendation.
• Market concentration: with three insurers writing about 54% of premiums, a comparison that covers only two or three brands is not covering the market.

Every New Zealand insurer writes how much life insurance do you need 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 actual sums insured across a range of households, which is the closest thing to a real benchmark anyone has.
• They can tell you what insurers are currently writing for people in your situation, rather than what a table said three months ago.
• They know which of the smaller insurers is currently competitive, which market-share data will never show you.
• They have to justify the recommendation against your circumstances, not against an average.

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.