Life insurance in Northland

Northland’s economy is dominated by small businesses and physical work. Owner-drivers, forestry contractors, boatbuilders, small farmers, growers and building contractors make up a large part of the workforce, and for all of them the same two questions come first: what will ACC actually pay if I am injured, and what will an insurer accept as my income if I am ill. Those two answers set the shape of everything else.

Occupation class does the rest. Forestry, log transport, marine work and construction sit in the higher classes, which raises income protection cost, narrows the benefit periods available, and in some cases means an insurer will not offer disability cover at all. Because appetite differs sharply between insurers and shifts over time, one quote for a Northland trade tells you very little about what is achievable.

Distance is the third factor and it belongs in the health insurance conversation rather than the life insurance one. A great deal of specialist and private surgical work for the region happens in Whangārei or Auckland, so what a health policy pays towards travel and accommodation — and whether it covers someone to travel with you — is a more meaningful comparison than the hospital network.

Across Northland the plan is usually built from the disability side, because that is where both the risk and the difficulty sit.

1. 1Decide the ACC position first for anyone self-employed — CoverPlus or CoverPlus Extra.
2. 2Find out what income protection is actually available for the occupation, from several insurers.
3. 3Use trauma and TPD to carry more of the plan where income protection is capped or unavailable.
4. 4Life cover to the mortgage, family costs and any personally guaranteed business borrowing.
5. 5Health insurance chosen with the travel and accommodation benefit read line by line.

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

• Standard ACC CoverPlus paying a percentage of a low taxable income after business deductions.
• Benefit periods capped at two or five years for forestry, marine and construction work.
• Health policies with token travel benefits in a region where travel is routine.
• Boats, motorcycles and off-road vehicles, asked about as pastimes as well as work.
• Business borrowing guaranteed personally and insured nowhere.

New Zealand is small enough that its life insurers do not bother with geography, and honest enough about it that you can check: ask any insurer whether it holds regional rates and the answer is no. Premiums come from age, sex, smoking status, health and family history, occupation and pastimes. A Kaitaia application and a Ponsonby application with the same details produce the same number, from the same table, on the same day.

Northland has fewer resident advisers than the main centres, and since video advice became normal that has stopped mattering. A household at Kaikohe or Kerikeri can work with a specialist in high-risk occupations wherever that person is based. The question worth asking is how many insurers were approached for your occupation and what each of them said.

Every New Zealand insurer writes life, trauma, income protection and 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.

• Insurer appetite for forestry, marine and diving occupations differs and changes — current knowledge beats a rate table.
• For self-employed clients, coordinating CoverPlus Extra with an income protection waiting period avoids paying twice.
• Where income protection is capped, trauma and TPD can be sized to carry more of the plan.
• Health insurance travel and accommodation benefits vary substantially and matter more here than in a main centre.

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.