Momentum Life quotes: what sets the price and what to check
Financial advice is provided by Craig Smith Business Services Limited, trading as Smiths Insurance & KiwiSaver, a licensed Financial Advice Provider (FSP712931). QuoteHub is a trading name.
A Momentum Life quote is a price for one product, one person and one amount, so it depends on which product you pick, your age and the sum insured. Quick Life premiums are also set by gender and smoking status. Funeral Insurance premiums are level to the 89th birthday; Quick Life premiums step up each year to age 75. QuoteHub does not publish an exact Momentum premium.
A quote is not cover. Under both wordings cover starts on the acceptance date shown in your policy schedule, and both products give a 30-day free look: Funeral Insurance counts it from the acceptance date and Quick Life from the policy start. This page explains what goes into the price, how the two premium shapes behave over the years, and what to check before you accept. It covers Momentum Life's two products, Funeral Insurance and Quick Life, as at 20 October 2026.
What a Momentum quote depends on
Here is what each wording says sets the premium.
- Quick Life: age, gender, smoking status and the benefit amount. Each policy anniversary Momentum recalculates the premium for the insured's age, gender and smoking status (Quick Life Policy Wording). If you keep the automatic 3% yearly benefit increase, the premium rises with it, and you can opt out of an increase. A joint policy gets $50 a year off when a partner joins.
- Funeral Insurance: the wording does not list the rating factors. It says the premium is shown on your policy schedule, can be paid fortnightly, monthly or annually, and that Additional Lives Insured on a family policy get a $150 discount each year. Whatever Momentum's online quote asks, the entry band is 40 to 75 and the benefit is $3,000 to $30,000.
- Both: card payments carry an additional processing fee. The wordings give no percentage, so we do not print one. Ask what the fee is before you choose a payment method.
Neither wording gives a table of premiums, so the figure in a quote is for your details only.
Level versus stepped premiums
The two products price in different shapes, and the shape matters more than the first-year figure.
| Funeral Insurance | Quick Life | |
|---|---|---|
| Premium shape | Level: the same rate each year until the 89th birthday, then no more premiums | Stepped: recalculated each year, "generally increase each year" with age, then fixed from age 75 |
| Later in life | Premiums stop at the 89th birthday and cover continues for life | Premiums are fixed from 75 and do not stop; at 75, $20,000 of the benefit becomes free, and you can elect a free $20,000 funeral benefit or continue Quick Life with the free component |
| Can the rate change? | For everyone on the same offer, only for a change in tax or other law, or claims experience significantly different from expected, on 30 days' written notice from the next policy anniversary | Yes, for tax or claims experience on 30 days' notice, as well as the yearly age step |
| Increasing cover | New 24-month window for the increase | New 2-year window for the increase portion, unless the increase is automatic |
| Entry age | 40 to 75 | 18 to 65 |
Level does not mean cheap; it means only that the rate does not step up with age. See stepped versus level premiums for how the two structures work in general.
The break-even risk, with made-up numbers
Funeral Insurance's wording says total premiums "could exceed the Benefit", and Quick Life's says premiums "might be more than the benefit paid out". Here is how that happens. The numbers below are invented to show the arithmetic. They are not Momentum premiums.
Suppose a level premium of $40 a month for a $10,000 Funeral Insurance benefit:
| Years of premiums | Total paid | Compared with $10,000 |
|---|---|---|
| 5 | $2,400 | Below |
| 10 | $4,800 | Below |
| 20 | $9,600 | Just below |
| 21 | $10,080 | Above |
| 34 (age 55 to 89) | $16,320 | Above by $6,320 |
On those example numbers, a person who starts at 55 and lives past 89 pays $16,320 in total for a $10,000 benefit. A person who dies after 10 years has paid $4,800 and the family receives $10,000. Which result you get depends on how long you live and how long you pay, which nobody knows in advance. That is why the wording calls it a risk, not a certainty.
Stepped premiums have the opposite problem. Suppose a stepped premium of $30 a month that rises by $3 a month each year. After 10 years you are paying $57 a month and have paid $5,220; after 20 years you are paying $87 a month and have paid $14,040. The issue there is not exceeding a benefit but whether you can keep paying, because Momentum can cancel a policy that is unpaid for over a month, and paying later does not automatically reinstate it. Cancelling and rejoining restarts the 2-year limit.
You can test your own figures in our funeral insurance break-even calculator and check the cost you are covering with the funeral cost calculator. FDANZ's 2026 report puts an average full funeral for 50 guests at $11,700 for a cremation and $14,300 for a burial (FDANZ), and the Funeral Insurance benefit "may not cover the cost" of a funeral, as its wording says.
What the quote does not show
A price is only half of a Momentum policy. Check these before accepting, because they decide whether the policy pays.
- The first window. Funeral Insurance pays in the first 24 months only for death from an accident within 90 days. Any other death pays no benefit; all premiums paid for that person are refunded. Quick Life excludes pre-existing conditions and suicide for the first 2 years, and a few conditions can be excluded permanently in your policy schedule.
- Always-excluded deaths in Quick Life. Alcohol or drug effects, war, terrorism, criminal activity, and listed dangerous jobs or pastimes, such as diving deeper than 40 metres or driving faster than 130 km/h. Occupation and pastimes are not asked at application, but they can matter at claim time.
- Who the policy is for. Funeral Insurance accepts New Zealanders 40 to 75, and a family policy can hold up to four people, each a partner or relative of the owner. Neither product accepts a new applicant over 75; see age limits.
- A policy you already have. Keep existing cover until any new policy is in place.
- Misstated details. If age or smoking status on a Quick Life policy is wrong, the benefit can be adjusted; if the true age at the start was over 65, the policy is void and premiums are refunded. If you stopped smoking, you can apply for non-smoker rates after 24 consecutive months.
How to get a Momentum quote
You have two routes, and both go to Momentum, which prices and issues the policy.
- Online. The buttons on this page open Momentum Life's online quote and application. Choose the product, enter your details and look at the premium for your own age and amount before you commit.
- By phone. Momentum's published line for a new policy is 0800 111 679, Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm. Existing customers use 0800 108 108. See Momentum Life contact details.
Enter honest details. A wrong age or smoking status can change what a claim pays. Momentum's privacy policy, which the Funeral Insurance wording points to at momentumlife.co.nz/privacy-policy, explains how it uses what you provide.
What QuoteHub shows instead
QuoteHub does not publish an exact premium for any insurer. Our Premium Index shows dated ranges for underwritten life cover at sample ages, and it has no funeral rows, because Momentum publishes no funeral premium. If you are in good health, get an underwritten quote to put beside Momentum's. Our funeral insurance quotes guide explains how to compare like with like.
About the insurer
Before you pay for any quote, note who would hold the policy: Momentum Life Limited, rated B (Fair) by A.M. Best (affirmed 11 February 2026), a rating in the "vulnerable" range of that agency's scale. A price says nothing about that. Momentum reports a solvency ratio of 107% at 30 June 2026 (Momentum Life: Financial strength), and the rating is an opinion, not a recommendation. Advice is provided by Craig Smith Business Services Limited, trading as Smiths Insurance & KiwiSaver, a licensed Financial Advice Provider (FSP712931). QuoteHub is a Momentum Life partner, and Smiths Insurance & KiwiSaver may receive a commission if you buy; see how we are paid. This is general information, not advice. Written by the QuoteHub Editorial Team and reviewed by the QuoteHub Adviser Team on 20 October 2026.
Adviser's view
Momentum publishes no price table, and QuoteHub shows ranges, never an exact Momentum premium, so the only real figure is the one Momentum's online quote gives you. Use the quote for your own age and amount, then check three things before paying: the first-window limit, how the premium moves with age, and whether total premiums could pass the benefit.
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Cite this page QuoteHub NZ (2026). Momentum Life Quotes NZ: How to Get One and What to Check. www.quotehub.co.nz/life-insurance/momentum-life/quotes. Updated 2026-10-20.
References
- Momentum Life: Funeral Insurance Policy Wording (17 August 2023)
- Momentum Life: Quick Life Insurance Policy Wording (November 2025)
- Momentum Life: Contact us
- Momentum Life: Financial strength
- FDANZ: 2026 New Zealand Funeral Industry Trends Report (PDF)
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