Insurance news, decoded

What actually changed in New Zealand insurance, and what it means for the cover you hold. 46 stories, each linked to the document it is based on. Every figure sourced to a named publisher.

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Latest news (46)

The State Pays Three Times More Toward A Funeral If The Death Was An Accident, ACC, 2026-09-09. ACC pays a funeral grant of up to $8,236.40 with no means test. For a death from illness, the only grant is Work and Income's $2,697.43, and it is tested against the whole estate. Source: ACC, financial support after a fatal injury.
Three Health Insurers, Three Different Rules On When You Must Ask First, Health system, 2026-09-09. Southern Cross and UniMed require prior approval once treatment passes $1,000 or involves a hospital. nib only recommends it. And of the three, only UniMed publishes how long a decision takes. Source: Southern Cross, nib and UniMed member pages.
Four Of The Five Insurers You Can Buy From Directly Now Sell The Same Thing, And Call It The Same Name, Insurers, 2026-09-09. AA Life, Chubb Life, Southern Cross Life and nib all publish a product called Life & Living. Pinnacle is the outlier. A bundle is easier to buy than a menu, and much harder to compare. Source: The five direct insurers' own product pages.
Australia bans genetic test results in life underwriting next month. New Zealand does not., Regulation, 2026-09-08. From 8 October 2026 an Australian life insurer cannot use an adverse genetic test result to price or refuse cover. A New Zealand insurer can ask for the same result and use it. Two countries, one industry, opposite rules, five weeks apart. Source: 1News, 'I'd probably be dead': Woman warns of gene testing insurance fears.
One owner will hold 640,000 lives, and the adviser panel gets shorter, Insurers, 2026-09-08. Partners Group Holdings has agreed to buy Fidelity Life for $630 million. Both sell almost entirely through advisers, and the companies put the combined book at more than 640,000 lives. Nothing changes on your policy. What changes is how many separate owners an adviser can quote. Source: Dai-ichi Life Group, Notice regarding acquisition of Fidelity Life.
Southern Cross Has Published No 2026 Premium Increase. It Has Published Everything Around One, Premiums, 2026-09-08. There is no announced Southern Cross premium rise for 2026, because no New Zealand health insurer announces one. What the Society does publish is the machinery behind your renewal: age-rating to 75, your age band's claims experience, and two years of reserves spent holding increases down. Source: Southern Cross Medical Care Society Group, Annual Report Summary 2025.
Big bikes take a 46% ACC levy rise, and one training course claws most of it back, ACC, 2026-08-20. From 1 July 2026 the ACC levy on a petrol bike over 750cc jumps 46% to $624.93 a year, the steepest rise of any engine band. Mid-size riders pay more only because ACC redrew the bands. A Ride Forever Gold course takes 25% off the levy for two years, which covers most of the increase. Source: ACC, Motorcycle levy changes.
Gynaecologists say a Southern Cross price list would send some women to theatre twice, Regulation, 2026-08-20. The insurer's hospital arm says paying one bundled price per operation is how the whole system has worked since 1997. The Commerce Commission has until 22 October to decide who gets to argue about it, and the answer sets a price floor even for people with no health cover. Source: Commerce Commission, NZGA seeks authorisation to engage in collective bargaining with Southern Cross.
Some insurance sold across a counter pays back 3 cents in the dollar, Regulation, 2026-08-20. The FMA found certain add-on policies return 3 to 6 cents in claims for every premium dollar, and named loose oversight of the people selling them as the weak point. The same commission-paid model sells most life and health cover in New Zealand. Source: FMA, Add on insurance review highlights insurers' responsibility to deliver fair outcomes (MR No. 2026-35).
The person selling you insurance with your car loan is often not your adviser, Regulation, 2026-08-20. Cover arranged beside a car loan or a mortgage is usually not regulated financial advice, so the seller owes you none of an adviser's duties. From 1 July 2026 one regulator watches both halves of that deal, and it has put commissions first on its list. Source: FMA, Credit transfer creates single conduct regulator for financial markets.
If Foundation Life owed you money, it is now at Inland Revenue and there is no deadline to claim it, Insurers, 2026-08-20. Foundation Life cancelled every whole-of-life and endowment policy, the old savings-style life cover, and paid out the cash inside them. Anyone who did not return their paperwork by 30 June 2026 had their payment handed to Inland Revenue instead. Inland Revenue has published no closing date for claiming it back. Source: Foundation Life, News and announcements.
Health cover rose 19.2 percent in a year. Three more like it would add 69 percent, Premiums, 2026-08-18. Health insurance rose 19.2 percent in the year to June 2026 while pay rose 2.0 percent, on Stats NZ figures. Three more years at that pace would add about 69 percent, and 80,770 people have already dropped hospital and specialist cover. Source: Stats NZ, Consumers price index: June 2026 quarter.
80,770 Dropped Hospital Cover. The Hard Part Is Getting It Back, Health system, 2026-08-14. An industry-funded report counts 80,770 New Zealanders who ended the cover that pays for hospital treatment, as the average claim per member climbed 75% in four years. What the report never mentions is that cancelling hands back the health history your insurer has already accepted. Source: Financial Services Council, the overlooked role of insurance.
Cover that came with the job ends with the job, and 43% of insured New Zealanders hold it that way, Insurers, 2026-08-14. Of the New Zealanders who hold cover, 43% get it through a workplace or group scheme, so a redundancy can take the insurance and the income on the same day. Behind that sits a thinner base of cover than most of the OECD carries, 0.8% of the economy against a 3.5% average. That 4.4 times gap is real, and smaller than it looks. Source: FSC, The overlooked role of insurance in New Zealand's health system.
The new charge on your insurer is worth about 14 cents in every $100 of premium, Regulation, 2026-08-14. The Reserve Bank's proposed prudential levy takes $81 million from insurers over three years. For a policyholder that is cents. For the smallest insurers it is 3.138% of revenue, nearly 23 times the rate the biggest pay, and nobody will say how much of it reaches a renewal notice. Source: Reserve Bank of New Zealand, Prudential levy consultation.
Your Resolution Life policy is moving to Asteron, and the contract moves with it, Insurers, 2026-08-13. The transfer is due in 2027. Your sum insured, your exclusions and any health loading carry across untouched. The rating upgrade in the headlines belongs to Asteron's customers rather than yours, and one clause in the transfer law binds you to a split you never sign. Source: Asteron Life, Fitch places Asteron Life on Rating Watch Positive.
Your insurer had to write down how climate change could push your premium up. Not any more, Regulation, 2026-08-12. Nine large life and health insurers have been let out of the rule that made them publish an annual climate report. Chubb Life's last one warned of stricter eligibility checks after big weather events and of reinsurance costs feeding into prices. Dropping the reports saves the industry up to $5.4 million a year, which is at most $3.86 per person with health cover. Source: FMA, No action on climate reporting obligations for health and life insurers.
The industry's biggest election ask would cut your employer's bill, not your premium, Regulation, 2026-08-12. Scrapping the tax on workplace health and life cover would save an employer roughly half of every dollar of premium it pays. The employer keeps that saving. Of 21 recommendations, only two could change a number on your policy. Source: FSC, Our Prosperity Agenda: the 2026 Election Manifesto.
Workplace health cover is taxed at 49.25%. If that tax goes, the money is your employer's, not yours, Premiums, 2026-08-12. Insurers want Fringe Benefit Tax taken off employer-paid cover, and have modelled $198 million of national benefit. On most workplace schemes the tax is 49.25 cents in every premium dollar, the same for a cleaner as for a chief executive. Nothing in the proposal sends any of it to you. Source: FSC, Why removing FBT on workplace insurance stacks up.
One Blood Test Now Decides Who Gets Four Diabetes Medicines Funded, Health system, 2026-08-12. From 1 September 2026 the ethnicity and heart-risk rules come off four type 2 diabetes medicines, and one blood test decides instead. All four were already state-funded, so non-Pharmac drug cover does not move. The hole it leaves is the part worth reading. Source: Pharmac, decision to widen access for type 2 diabetes medicines.
When an AI insurance tool owes you a duty, and when it owes you nothing, Regulation, 2026-08-07. If an AI tool tells you which policy to buy, New Zealand law already treats that as regulated advice, and the firm behind it must be licensed and put your interests ahead of its own. If it only tells you what a policy says, none of that applies. The FMA has now started asking firms how they handle that line. Source: FMA, Thematic review: Artificial intelligence in financial advice.
UniMed now charges $150 a scope or scan, and will not say how far premiums rose, Premiums, 2026-08-01. From 1 August 2026 roughly 140,000 members pay the first $150 of each colonoscopy or gastroscopy themselves, and on one plan the first $150 of every CT, MRI and PET scan. Those tests were covered in full in July. The premium rise that arrived with them has no published number. Source: UniMed, Premium and Health Plan changes.
ACC's new target needs 3,000 more people a year off weekly payments, ACC, 2026-07-30. Payments can stop on a decision that you are fit for suitable work, whether or not that work exists. ACC's own figures show its 2029/30 target needs about 11,000 people a year to leave long-term cover, roughly 38% more than 2024/25 managed. Source: ACC, Turnaround Plan 2026/27.
ACC needs ten times last year's fall in people on long-term payments, ACC, 2026-07-29. ACC's long-term claims pool fell by 95 people in 2025/26. To reach the target ACC has set for June 2027, it needs a fall of at least 954. On its own year-end scorecard three of eight measures were stamped Not Achieved, and the printed numbers say five. Source: ACC, Turnaround Plan Monthly Report, June 2026.
Nobody signs off your health premium rise. Southern Cross's next boss comes from a country where a minister does, Insurers, 2026-07-29. Jan O'Keefe joins Southern Cross in February 2027 from an Australian insurer that cannot charge older members more and cannot lift prices without a minister's approval. New Zealand has neither rule, and the Society has no permanent chief executive for four months in between. Source: Southern Cross Health Society.
ACC caps self-employed cover at $125,313, and pays nothing when it is illness that stops you working, ACC, 2026-07-27. CoverPlus Extra tops out at $125,313 for 2026/27, exactly 80% of the income ACC charges levies on. That is 62.7% of a $200,000 income and 50.1% of a $250,000 one. And ACC's weekly compensation only ever follows an injury, so the illness gap applies at every income. Source: ACC, CoverPlus Extra (CPX) cover options.
Your Child's Doctor Visit Was Free. The Pharmacy Route May Not Be, Health system, 2026-07-22. From 2 June 2026 pharmacies can supply funded treatment for seven conditions with no prescription. Five are only for under-14s, who already get free doctor visits and free prescriptions, and Pharmac says the pharmacy may charge a consultation fee. Source: Pharmac, decision to extend pharmacy services.
ACC is approving fewer planned operations, and the levy on your wages is set in law to rise twice more, ACC, 2026-07-08. New decision tools are lowering approval rates for operations like knee and shoulder repairs, ACC's own quarterly report says, and challenging a decision now takes 121 days. Behind it sits a $66.0 billion claims bill that inflation is adding to faster than the turnaround can cut it. Source: ACC, Quarter Three Performance Report 2025/26 (March 2026).
Once your policy is two years old, replacing it pays your adviser all over again, Regulation, 2026-06-30. The Financial Markets Authority has named the way insurance advisers get paid as one of four things it will chase this year. Its own data found policies were 1.6 times more likely to be replaced once the two year clawback window closed, and how good the product was barely came into it. Source: FMA, FMA sets out regulatory priorities for 2026/27 (MR No. 2026-31).
Health premiums are up 15 to 30 percent in two years, and the Reserve Bank is now testing what insurers can absorb, Insurers, 2026-06-30. For the first time the Bank has ordered the 3 largest health insurers, alongside the 5 largest life insurers, to work backwards from their own failure. No policy changes because of it. The squeeze it is testing for, steeper premiums and narrower cover, is already on renewal notices. Source: RBNZ, 2026 Banking and Insurance Stress Tests - Scenarios.
One in Three Now Waits Past Four Months for Planned Surgery, Health system, 2026-06-23. About 27,000 people on the planned surgery list have waited longer than four months, where the 2016/17 rate would have left about 1,600. Health New Zealand's own ten-year table shows how the slide happened, and how little of it this year's recovery undoes. Source: Health New Zealand, health targets quarter three 2025/26.
ACC pays 80% of your income. Most income protection policies subtract it before paying., ACC, 2026-06-17. ACC's Injuries in New Zealand report counts more than 20 million days away from work. ACC replaces 80% of pre-injury earnings, nothing at all in the first week, and most New Zealand policy wordings offset whatever ACC pays. The uncovered fifth of ACC's own spending runs to about $714 million a year. Source: ACC, Injuries in New Zealand.
Home injuries take more paid time off work than work and road combined, and ACC pays nothing for the first week, ACC, 2026-06-17. ACC's 2025 numbers put 6.4 million days of paid compensation on injuries at home, more than work and road injuries together. Those are the injuries with no employer-paid first week: ACC starts on day 8, at up to 80 per cent of earnings. Source: ACC, Injuries in New Zealand report acts as call to action.
Two rises in 91 days: Partners Life's older health cover is up 18.9%, its newer plan 3.9%, Premiums, 2026-06-17. The two rounds multiply out to 18.9% on Protection Plan private medical cover, and holders meet the lot in one anniversary letter with the rise for being a year older on top. Last year a round announced as 2% reached existing clients as 20%. Source: Partners Life, Private Medical Cover Premium Changes.
ACC raised its funeral grant faster than the weekly payment injured people live on, ACC, 2026-06-11. From 1 July 2026 ACC lifts its one-off payments 3.08% to keep pace with prices, and the weekly income payment only 1.97%. Anyone past six months on a claim now buys about 1.08% less, and no rule in the scheme ever pays that back. Source: ACC, Changes to ACC client payments from 1 July 2026.
Insurers still reward advisers with more than commission. Nobody has counted it since 2017, Regulation, 2026-06-11. The last count found $34 million in two years, including $1.9 million to fly 20 advisers to London. Roughly half of those deals would be illegal today. The rest are still legal, still unpublished, and your adviser has to disclose them if one applied to your advice. Source: FMA, Ensuring fair consumer outcomes from insurer benefits and campaigns (MR No. 2026-27).
Life premiums rose 2.7%. Per policy, the rise was bigger., Premiums, 2026-06-08. Insurers took $3.31 billion across 4 million policies, and policy numbers fell. A bigger pot shared between fewer covers means the increase carried by each one is larger than the 2.7% headline, on an average cover of $827.50 a year. Source: Financial Services Council.
Life insurers' profit jumped 47%. Health insurers paid out more than they collected., Insurers, 2026-06-01. Life insurers kept 12 cents of profit out of every dollar coming in last year, up from 8.5, because the money from policies grew 5% while the claims bill grew 1%. Health insurers paid out 103 cents per dollar and covered the gap from reserves KPMG says cannot keep absorbing it. Source: KPMG, New Zealand Insurance Update 2026.
An honest mistake can still cost you the whole policy, and the 2027 fix arrives one renewal at a time, Regulation, 2026-05-18. A man who died of colon cancer at 31 had his family's life claim cut in half over a colonoscopy he had as a teenager, and the insurer could lawfully have paid nothing at all. From 15 November 2027 the Contracts of Insurance Act makes the proportionate outcome compulsory. The catch is that each policy only reaches the new rules when it is new, renewed or changed after that date. Source: FMA, Letter to insurers outlining expectations regarding the Contracts of Insurance Act.
Two Partners Life medical price rises in nine months, and a profit that still fell a third, Insurers, 2026-05-18. Private Medical Cover customers renewed at around 20% more from July 2025, and 16.6% more arrives from April 2026. In the year between the two, Partners Life earned its Japanese owner a third less, and Dai-ichi's results never say why. Source: Daiichi Life Group, Financial Results FY2025 conference call presentation.
Health premiums rose almost 20%. AIA paid out less and declined a bigger share of claims, Insurers, 2026-05-12. AIA NZ turned down nine claims in every hundred in 2025, up from eight in 2024, and its total payout fell 4.8% to $790 million. Health claims did grow, by 6.2%, which is about a third of the rise in health insurance prices. At Southern Cross, claims genuinely surged. Source: AIA NZ, AIA NZ pays $790M in total claims in 2025.
A draft law would let the government cut the value of insurance policies, with no vote in Parliament and no compensation promised, Regulation, 2026-04-15. The power sits in Schedule 2 of the Reserve Bank's draft insurance law, and it only bites if your insurer is being rescued from failure. The same draft brings the first fines the Reserve Bank could seek without a criminal case, capped at $2,500,000 each time a rule is broken. Comments close 28 August. Source: RBNZ, Exposure draft of the Insurance (Prudential Supervision) Amendment Bill.
Every OneChoice policy is issued by Pinnacle Life, and no fund in New Zealand backs a life insurer that cannot pay, Insurers, 2026-04-15. Buy from the brand and your claim is owed by a company you never dealt with. If it ever could not pay, the law gives life policyholders a walled-off pot of assets and nothing else: no industry fund, no government guarantee. AM Best rates Pinnacle Life B+ (Good), the lowest rung it still calls secure. Source: AM Best, AM Best Affirms Credit Ratings of Pinnacle Life Limited.
FMG's yearly cover increases were wrong for 11 years, and 480 people found out at claim time, Insurers, 2026-02-09. The error sat on 54,642 policies and was worth about $6 a year, far too small for any customer to spot on a renewal notice. A second FMG error charged 3,904 contents customers extra to name belongings that were already covered, an average of $496 each. Both ran for more than a decade before FMG's own systems caught them. Source: FMA, FMG admits to making misleading statements and makes payment of $2.1 million.
The fund behind your home insurance levy holds $622.6 million, and the first $2.1 billion of a big quake is its problem alone, Premiums, 2026-01-28. Cabinet froze the natural hazards levy at 16 cents against Treasury advice of 24. That keeps up to $274 a year on a capped home. It also leaves about $464 million a year uncollected by a fund that is already $1.48 billion short of the point where its outside cover starts, and if that fund falls short, levy payers or taxpayers make up the difference. Source: The Treasury, Cabinet paper ECO-26-SUB-0003: Insurance affordability and the review of Natural Hazards Insurance Act financial settings and levy settings.
The public system funds less surgery per person than in 2018, and buys the difference from private hospitals, Health system, 2026-01-06. Health NZ funded 28.7 planned operations for every 1,000 New Zealanders in FY2025, down from 30.4 in FY2018. Public hospitals did 10,250 fewer operations than seven years ago, and one in five publicly funded operations now happens in a private theatre. Source: NZPSHA, Elective Surgery 2018-2025.

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