Decision

Your insurer had to write down how climate change could push your premium up. Not any more

Source: FMA, No action on climate reporting obligations for health and life insurers

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.

By Henry Smith · Regulation · 2026-08-12

What this means for you If you hold health or life cover with one of the nine large insurers affected, nothing about your policy changes: no benefit, exclusion, premium or claim decision depends on whether your insurer files a climate report. What goes away is a public document. Those annual reports were where insurers such as Chubb Life put in writing that climate pressure could push the cost of cover up and make health questions harder to pass, and none is required for financial years ending 31 March 2027 or later.

Written by Henry Smith · Reviewed by Smiths Insurance & KiwiSaver, licensed Financial Advice Provider (FSP712931)

After a significant storm or flood, Chubb Life told the public, it may need to ask new customers more about their health and lifestyle before it will issue a policy, with "stricter eligibility checks or longer processing times". In the same document it wrote that when claims run past what it expects, "this may mean we have to adjust the cost of cover. This can lead to increases in the cost of premiums for customers." It added that reinsurers, the companies insurers themselves buy cover from in case a wave of big claims lands at once, may be "unprepared to offer reinsurance for some kinds of cover".

Chubb Life Insurance New Zealand, which reports about 270,000 customers, wrote all of that because the law made it (Chubb Life Insurance New Zealand Limited, New Zealand Climate Disclosures 2025). From now on the law does not. Nine of New Zealand's largest life and health insurers have been let out of the rule that required an annual climate report, and the one Chubb published in April 2026 is the last it was ever required to write.

If you hold cover with one of the nine, nothing inside your policy moves. No benefit, exclusion, premium or claim decision has ever turned on whether your insurer filed a climate report. What changes is what a customer can look up. This was the one place these companies were obliged to set down, in plain English and in public, how a warming climate could feed into their prices, their health questions and what they are willing to sell.

What those reports said

Only "large" insurers ever had to file one. Large means total assets above $1 billion for two years running, or premium income above $250 million for two years running (Financial Markets Conduct Act 2013, s 461Q). The reports now stopping are therefore the ones covering the most customers.

On heat, Chubb wrote that heatwaves and poor air quality "might impact physical health", and that heavier claims eat into solvency, the spare money an insurer must keep on hand so it can always pay claims. That is the chain ending in the pricing sentence above: more claims, thinner buffer, dearer cover.

The FMA notes that some insurers "may choose to continue to produce climate statements on a voluntary basis". If they do, the fair dealing rules that ban misleading statements still cover whatever they publish. Voluntary is the word doing the work.

Why it is ending

The Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs, Hon Cameron Brewer, announced the change on 18 June 2026. His reasoning: health and life insurers "aren't directly exposed to climate risks like extreme weather events, so there's little value in making them report on it". Nine insurers come out, on top of 88 other businesses removed by earlier decisions, taking the number of companies that must report from 164 to about 67 (Beehive, 18 June 2026).

Parliament has not actually changed the law. What changed is enforcement. On the same day, the Financial Markets Authority, the government body that polices financial companies, announced a "no action" approach: the rule stays on the books, but the regulator will not come after anyone who ignores it. Relief started on 19 June 2026 and covers financial years ending 31 March 2026 or later. Insurers do not have to apply for it, or even tell the FMA they are using it (FMA, MR No. 2026-30, 18 June 2026). General Counsel Liam Mason said the approach recognises "the uncertain timeframe in which the amending legislation might be passed".

Not enforcing a rule is not the same as deleting it. The same release says the promise "does not necessarily preclude third parties from taking legal action", and if the law change has not passed by the time the next reports fall due, the FMA will look at this again. The regulator has since spelled out the cut-off: the last reporting period still covered runs to 31 December 2026, and the first year with no report at all is the year to 31 March 2027 (FMA, page updated 4 August 2026).

What is the saving worth to you?

The reports are expensive to produce. Officials put the cost of one at "approximately $261,500 to $600,000 per year" for each insurer, so nine of them is $2.35 million to $5.40 million a year of cost coming off the industry. The same paper says letting these insurers go costs the government "approximately $50,000 per year in levy funding", the industry fee that pays the FMA to run the scheme. The insurers keep between 47 and 108 times what the public purse gives up (Cabinet paper, Removal of Health and Life Insurers from the Climate-Related Disclosures Regime, 21 May 2026, published 15 July 2026).

Now spread that across the people paying the premiums. Between about 1.4 million and 1.58 million New Zealanders hold health cover: the lower count comes from Westpac Economics (Insurance Business NZ, 12 August 2026), the higher is our own working back from Southern Cross's "more than 945,000 members" at "approximately 60% of the health insurance market (by customer numbers)" (Commerce Commission, 25 May 2026). Hand every cent to health policyholders and none to life policyholders, and it lands at $1.49 to $3.86 a person a year. Less than one flat white, once a year.

Our calculation	Figure
What one climate report costs an insurer each year	$261,500 to $600,000
Insurers let out of the rule	9
Total saving to the industry each year	$2.35m to $5.40m
Public levy money given up	about $50,000 a year
New Zealanders with health cover, published and our own working	about 1.4m to 1.58m
Saving per person with health cover, if all of it is handed back	$1.49 to $3.86 a year
Aon's forecast for how fast NZ medical costs rise in 2026, workplace medical plans	18%

QuoteHub arithmetic on the Cabinet paper's per-insurer cost estimate, the Commerce Commission market share statement above and Aon's 2026 medical trend rate of 4 December 2025. Aon's rate covers workplace medical plan costs, so it sits here as a sense of scale rather than a like for like comparison. Our per-person figure hands the whole saving to health policyholders and none to life policyholders, so it is a best case.

The saving is real, and nobody has to pass it on. No insurer has said it will. A few dollars a year, in a year when medical costs are forecast to climb 18%, would be invisible on a renewal notice even if it arrived.

What happens to my policy?

Nothing. The practical change for anyone holding or shopping for cover is one of information, not terms. For these nine insurers, the public record of what they themselves expect climate pressure to do to premiums, underwriting and reinsurance is now a snapshot with an end date rather than an annual series. Every report already filed stays published and can still be read. For these nine, there may not be another.

What could we not check?

Not everyone in government agreed. The Cabinet paper records that "MBIE's position is that, on balance, health and life insurers should continue reporting". MBIE is the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, and its argument is that the scheme only works if enough companies report, so the picture stays "consistent, comparable, economy wide". The Ministry for the Environment agreed with it. The same paper records that the Financial Services Council, the industry body whose members are the insurers in question, asked for the removal, and that there was "no direct consultation with health and life insurers" first.

The $261,500 to $600,000 figure is an estimate by officials written into a Cabinet paper. It has not been audited, and the paper does not show its working. We could not get hold of the Regulatory Impact Statement that sits behind it.

We cannot show that any of this saving reaches a customer. We could not find a single New Zealand insurer that has blamed climate reporting costs for a premium move in either direction. Our per-person figures are ours, they use two different population counts because no single official count was available to us, and they assume every dollar is handed back, which is an assumption rather than a finding.

And none of it is law yet. The change is meant to arrive as an amendment to the Financial Markets Conduct Amendment Bill. Until that passes, the duty to report is still written into the statute, with the FMA's promise not to enforce it sitting on top.

What this means for your cover

What a policy pays, how to size it, and how a rule change reaches an existing policy. Life insurance in New Zealand

Sources

Every source below was read and checked on 21 August 2026.

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