OneChoice: what to compare

OneChoice sells life and funeral-style cover in New Zealand direct to the public, without an adviser. Products of this kind are designed around a single promise: cover you can arrange quickly, with few or no medical questions. That is a real benefit for people who would otherwise be uninsurable or who would otherwise never get around to it.

It is also a design with predictable trade-offs, and they are the same across the market rather than specific to any one brand. Simplified acceptance is paid for with stand-down periods, with modest maximum sums insured, and with premium rates that assume the insurer knows less about your health than it would after full underwriting.

So the honest framing is not whether this brand is good or bad. It is whether simplified cover is the right category for you at all. For most people in reasonable health, it is not — full underwriting usually buys several times more cover for the same premium. For people who genuinely cannot get underwritten, it is often the only option available, and having some cover is better than none.

Run these before you compare brands. If a product fails them, the brand is irrelevant.

1. 1The stand-down. Most guaranteed-acceptance and simplified products do not pay the full sum insured for death by illness in the first period — commonly a year or two. Accidental death is usually covered from day one. Ask what is paid if you die of illness inside the stand-down; the common answer is a refund of premiums, sometimes with interest.
2. 2Total premiums against the sum insured. Stepped, age-rated premiums on a small sum insured can, over enough years, add up to more than the benefit. Ask for a projection to age 85 and compare the cumulative premium against the payout.
3. 3The maximum sum insured and the maximum entry age. Funeral-style products are typically capped well below what a mortgage requires.
4. 4Whether you could be medically underwritten instead. This is the question the product will not ask you. If a fully underwritten insurer would accept you at standard rates, or even with a loading, you will almost always get more cover per dollar.

None of this is an argument that simplified cover should not exist. It exists because full underwriting excludes people, and a policy that pays $15,000 to a family with no savings is not nothing. It is an argument for checking whether you are in the group the product was designed for.

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

• Which licensed insurer underwrites the policy, and which dispute resolution scheme it belongs to.
• The stand-down period, and exactly what is paid if you die of illness during it.
• Whether cover reduces or ends at a maximum age, and what happens to the premiums you have paid.
• Whether premiums are stepped and age-rated, and what they look like at 70 and 80.
• Whether any pre-existing condition exclusion applies, and how far back the wording looks.
• Whether the sum insured available is enough for what you are actually trying to protect.

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 test whether you would be accepted on full underwriting, which usually buys far more cover for the same premium.
• Where a health history is genuinely difficult, an adviser knows which insurers are most likely to offer terms rather than decline.
• An adviser will model the cumulative premium against the sum insured so you can see whether the product still makes sense at 80.
• For funeral costs specifically, an adviser can compare cover against simply holding the money — sometimes the honest answer is that you do not need a policy.
• An adviser documents the recommendation in writing, including the reason a simplified product was or was not appropriate.

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.