Contact sport and insurance underwriting

Contact sport surprises people in the opposite direction from most pastimes. Amateur participation is usually not rated at all — the frequency is low, the activity is organised and supervised, and the fatality risk is not what insurers price. What does matter is what the years of playing left in the medical record.

That is where the assessment actually happens. A player with a reconstructed knee, a shoulder repair and a documented back problem is assessed on those, not on the sport. And those histories land on income protection, where a joint or spine exclusion is a common outcome, rather than on life cover, which is usually standard.

The separate case is professional or semi-professional sport. That is an occupation, and it is underwritten as one — with an occupation class, an effect on income protection terms, and often a different maximum benefit period.

The questions cover the sport itself and then move quickly to the injury record.

• Which sport and at what level — social, club, representative, professional.
• How often you play or train.
• Whether you are paid to play.
• Any injuries requiring treatment, surgery or time off work.
• Any head injury or concussion recorded, and when.
• Your occupation, which is read alongside the injury history.

Evidence commonly requested

• A GP report where injuries have been treated.
• Orthopaedic or surgical reports where a procedure was done.
• Occasionally an ACC claim history.

Because the sport itself is rarely the rating factor, giving it up does not usually change terms. What can change is the injury picture: a long period with full function, no treatment and no recurrence supports a request to narrow or remove a joint exclusion. Professional players moving into another occupation should have their cover reviewed, since occupation class changes with the job.

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

• That the injury history, not the sport, is usually what produces terms.
• That professional or semi-professional play is assessed as an occupation with its own class.
• Whether a joint exclusion is limited to the joint actually injured or written more broadly.
• That head injury and concussion records are asked about specifically.
• That leaving professional sport should trigger a cover review, because occupation class changes.

Every New Zealand insurer writes applications involving contact sport 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.

• Insurers differ on how broadly they word exclusions arising from sports injuries.
• An adviser can present surgical reports and evidence of full recovery to narrow the wording offered.
• For professional players, an adviser knows which insurers write sporting occupations and on what terms.
• After a long clear period, an adviser can request that an exclusion be narrowed or removed.

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.