nib: what to compare

nib operates in the New Zealand market as a health insurer, with a range that also extends to life and living or serious-illness cover. For many households its health policy is the first insurance relationship they have, and the life cover is offered on top of it.

That sequence is worth being conscious of, because it inverts the order most advisers would work in. Health insurance pays for private treatment. Life and living cover replaces money — income, debt repayment, the cost of a family carrying on without an earner. They solve different problems, and the fact that one company can sell you both does not make one company the right home for both.

There is a real convenience benefit to consolidating, and multi-policy discounts are genuine. But the discount is only a saving if both policies would have been your choice independently. Bundling a strong health policy with a life wording you would not otherwise have picked is a discount on the wrong thing.

Work through these in order. The first two are about the health policy; the rest are the standard risk-cover dimensions applied to whatever life and living cover you are being offered.

One more structural point. Health premiums are typically age-rated and repriced every year, and they climb hard from the fifties onward. Life cover on a level structure does the opposite. Holding both with one insurer does not synchronise those behaviours, and it is worth understanding the shape of each bill separately rather than watching a combined direct debit.

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

• Whether the life or living cover offered alongside a health policy is fully underwritten or simplified, and what that means for pre-existing conditions.
• Whether pre-existing conditions excluded from the health policy would also be excluded on the life or trauma cover — the assessments are separate and the answers can differ.
• The maximum sums insured available, which are sometimes lower on products distributed alongside health cover.
• Whether income protection is available at all, since it is often the cover a working household needs most.
• Whether the bundle discount survives a change to either policy.

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.

• An adviser can quote health cover and life cover separately across the market and show you what the bundle discount is actually worth against the best standalone combination.
• Where a health insurer’s life wording is narrower than a dedicated life insurer’s, an adviser will show you the specific clauses rather than a general assurance.
• Pre-existing condition treatment differs between health and life underwriting; an adviser knows which insurers handle a given history most favourably on each.
• An adviser can structure health with one insurer and risk cover with another where that is the better outcome.
• Health claims and life claims are administratively different, and an adviser handles 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.