Asteron Life: what to compare

Asteron Life is a licensed life insurer operating in the New Zealand market with the core personal risk range — life cover, trauma or critical illness cover, total and permanent disability cover and income protection — as well as cover arranged for business purposes. It distributes through Registered Financial Service Providers.

Where a full-suite adviser-distributed insurer sits on your shortlist, the highest-value comparison is usually income protection rather than life cover. Life cover is a relatively simple promise and wordings converge. Income protection is a complicated promise with a dozen moving parts, and those parts differ enough between insurers that two policies with the same monthly benefit can produce materially different money at claim.

That is not a claim about this insurer specifically. It is a claim about where the differences live, and it is the reason a serious comparison spends more time on the disability wording than on the life rate.

Six questions decide what an income protection policy is actually worth. Ask each of them of every insurer you are considering, and record the answers in writing.

1. 1Agreed value or indemnity? Agreed value fixes the benefit at application on the income evidence you provide then. Indemnity assesses your income at claim. For anyone whose income fluctuates — self-employed, commission-based, seasonal — that distinction is the whole policy. Agreed value is not universally available and availability has narrowed across the market.
2. 2Which waiting periods are offered, and does the waiting period start from the date you stop work or the date of diagnosis? Four weeks, eight, thirteen, twenty-six and two years are common options, and the price difference between four and thirteen weeks is significant.
3. 3Which benefit periods are offered — two years, five years, to 65, to 70? A two-year benefit period is a different product from a to-65 one and should not be compared on price alone.
4. 4How does the policy offset other income, and specifically how does it treat ACC weekly compensation? Offsets are the single most common source of disappointment on New Zealand income protection claims.
5. 5Is there a booster or top-up benefit that lifts your total back toward the full benefit when ACC is paying part of it? Not every insurer offers one, and the mechanics differ where they do.
6. 6Is there a partial or proportionate disability benefit for a return to work at reduced capacity, and how is the reduction measured — by hours, by duties, or by income?

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

• The occupation class you have been assigned and what it does to income protection and TPD availability, not just price.
• Whether the income protection quoted is agreed value or indemnity — the price gap is large and so is the claim gap.
• Whether the trauma cover is standalone or accelerated, since accelerated trauma reduces life cover when it pays.
• Whether level premiums are available to the expiry age you want and what happens at expiry.
• Whether business cover is written on the same wording as personal cover or on a separate one with different definitions.

Every New Zealand insurer writes new zealand life insurers 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.

• Income protection availability, not just price, varies by occupation. An adviser knows which insurers will write your occupation and on what terms.
• Offset clauses are technical and rarely summarised accurately in marketing material. An adviser reads them.
• An adviser can model the ACC interaction so you are not paying for cover that ACC would provide anyway.
• Where an insurer will not offer agreed value for your income type, an adviser can find one that will or structure around it.
• For business cover, an adviser co-ordinates with your accountant on ownership and tax treatment, which changes the structure.

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.