Insurance for Defence Force personnel

The Defence Force is not one occupation. A supply clerk, a medic, a mechanic, an infantry soldier, an aircrew member and a clearance diver present entirely different risks, and insurers rate them accordingly. The first thing to get right on an application is the trade, described in civilian terms an underwriter can band.

The second is the exclusion. Almost all New Zealand life and disability policies carry a war or active service exclusion of some kind, and the wording differs substantially: some are narrow and apply only to declared hostilities, others are broader and capture peacekeeping and deployment to defined regions. This is not a detail to discover after you have been posted. It is a question to ask before you sign, in writing, naming the scenarios that are realistic for you.

The third is deployment mechanics. Policies commonly require notification of deployment, and some suspend or restrict cover during it while continuing to accept premiums. Others do not. There is no market standard, which makes this an area where advice earns its keep.

The last piece is transition. Service ends, often in your forties or earlier, and cover linked to service ends with it. Someone leaving with a decade of accumulated hearing loss, joint wear and possibly psychological injury is a much harder underwriting proposition at 45 than they were at 22. A personal policy taken during service and kept afterwards solves that problem before it exists.

This is one of the few occupations where you should ask for written answers to specific questions before the application is submitted.

1. 1What exactly does the war or active service exclusion say, and does it apply to peacekeeping and humanitarian deployments as well as combat?
2. 2Do I have to notify a deployment, and what happens to cover while I am deployed?
3. 3Is my trade rated separately — aircrew, diving, parachuting, explosive ordnance disposal, small craft operations?
4. 4Does the exclusion apply to all benefits, or only to death and disability arising directly from the excluded activity?
5. 5Does the policy continue unchanged if I leave the service, and does it continue if I take a civilian role overseas?

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

• The precise wording of the war and active service exclusion, and which benefits it attaches to.
• Whether deployment must be notified and what happens to cover during it.
• How your specific trade has been described and rated.
• Whether hazardous activities — parachuting, diving, aviation — are excluded or loaded.
• Hearing. Noise exposure is a documented issue in service, and it will be asked about.
• What happens to cover on discharge, and whether any service-linked cover can be converted.

Every New Zealand insurer writes cover for Defence Force personnel 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.

• War and active service exclusions are worded very differently between New Zealand insurers, and the differences only surface at claim time.
• Trade-based rating requires a description an underwriter can work with. A generic “Defence Force” entry gets a generic answer.
• Advisers who work with service personnel know which insurers currently handle deployment notification most sensibly.
• Transition planning — making sure cover survives discharge and any move overseas — is the piece most often left too late.

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.