Buying life insurance online

Online life insurance in New Zealand covers two different things. One is buying a policy end to end on an insurer’s website, usually from a direct-to-consumer brand with a deliberately simplified product. The other is doing everything except the advice online — quoting, applying and signing digitally through an adviser you never meet in person. The second is now how most adviser business is done, and it is not what people mean when they search for this.

The direct online product is built for speed. It asks fewer questions, uses an automated decision engine, and issues a policy in minutes for a clean profile. The trade is that the product range is narrow, the sums insured available are often capped, and the wording is whatever the provider offers.

There is a quieter trade too. An insurer that asks five health questions instead of thirty knows less about you, which means the questions it does ask carry more weight and the claims assessment does more work. Simplified underwriting does not remove risk from the transaction. It moves the risk from application day to claim day.

This is not an argument against buying online. It is an argument for knowing which situation you are in.

The point people most often miss is that going direct does not save money. Insurers build distribution costs into their rate tables whether an adviser is involved or not, and direct brands carry their own marketing costs. You are not buying a discount, you are choosing to do the work yourself.

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

• The maximum sum insured available online, which is often well below what a family with a mortgage needs.
• How many health questions are asked, and whether the policy says the insurer may seek further information at claim.
• Whether trauma cover offered online is accelerated against the life cover or standalone.
• Whether the online journey lets you decline indexation, and what happens if you do nothing.
• Whether there is a cooling-off period and how long it runs — most New Zealand policies have one.
• Who underwrites the product, because online brands are frequently distributors rather than the risk carrier.

Every New Zealand insurer writes life insurance in new zealand 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 the whole panel, so your health history is shopped rather than tested against one appetite.
• They explain what an accelerated benefit does to your life sum insured before you sign, not after a claim.
• They keep a written record of why the recommendation suits you, which is worth having at claim time.
• Their process is largely online too, so you are not trading convenience for advice — you can have both.

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.