Life insurance deals and offers

Promotions are a normal feature of a competitive market and there is nothing improper about them. What is worth understanding is what they are for. Acquiring a new life insurance customer is expensive, and a policy that stays on the books for fifteen years is highly profitable. So insurers will spend money in year one to win a customer they expect to keep — through a discounted first year, a cashback, or a period of premium-free cover.

That means the discount is not a gift, it is an investment the insurer expects to recoup. It also means the number you should be comparing between insurers is the ongoing premium, because that is what you will pay for the other fourteen years.

None of this makes promotions bad. If two policies are genuinely comparable on wording and ongoing price, and one comes with three months free, take the three months. The mistake is letting the promotion decide between products that are not comparable.

1. 1Find the ongoing premium. Ask what the monthly cost is in year two, after any introductory discount ends.
2. 2Multiply the difference. If policy A is $10 a month cheaper ongoing and policy B offers $300 cashback, A is ahead within three years and stays ahead.
3. 3Check whether the discount is permanent or introductory. Multi-policy, membership and healthy-lifestyle discounts often continue; first-year discounts by definition do not.
4. 4Check what a permanent discount depends on. Some require ongoing participation in a wellness programme, and the premium rises if you stop.
5. 5Read the wordings of both policies on terminal illness, trauma conditions and TPD definitions before letting the offer break the tie.
6. 6If the offer requires you to switch from an existing policy, price the re-underwriting risk. A new loading or exclusion costs more than any cashback.

Discounts that are usually genuine

• Paying annually rather than monthly, which most New Zealand insurers reward.
• Multi-policy or multi-life discounts where a couple insures together with the same insurer.
• Large sum insured bands, where the rate per thousand of cover falls above a threshold.
• Healthy lifestyle or wellness programme discounts, if you will actually engage with the programme.
• Membership-linked discounts through an employer scheme or association.

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

• Whether the quoted premium includes an introductory discount, and what the figure becomes without it.
• Whether a policy fee is being waived temporarily or permanently.
• Whether a wellness discount requires ongoing activity tracking, and what happens if you stop.
• Whether a cashback is conditional on the policy staying in force for a minimum period.
• Whether the discount applies to all benefits or only to the life cover component.
• Whether the discounted product has the same wording as the insurer’s standard product.

Every New Zealand insurer writes what life insurance costs 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 can show you the ongoing premium across the panel, which is the number promotions are designed to distract from.
• They know which discounts are structural and continue, and which end after twelve months.
• They can tell you when an offer genuinely tips a close decision, and when it is masking a weaker wording.
• They carry a duty to justify any recommendation to replace existing cover, which is where promotions do the most damage.

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.