What does Tower Pet Insurance cover in NZ?
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.
Tower Pet Insurance is underwritten by Tower Limited and issued and managed by AWP Services New Zealand Limited, trading as Allianz Partners, across three tiers: Accident Only ($5,000 a year), Essentials ($7,000) and Comprehensive ($15,000), and every tier carries the same fixed 20% co-payment with no dollar excess (Tower Pet Insurance page; Comprehensive & Essentials Policy Wording, retrieved 17 September 2026). The figures and rules below are taken from Tower's own current policy wording, not its marketing page, so you can see what the contract actually says.
Tower's three plans
 Tower |
Accident Only | Essentials | Comprehensive |
|---|---|---|---|
| Covers | Accidental injury only | Injury and illness | Injury and illness, plus a small routine-care allowance |
| Annual limit (policy aggregate) | $5,000 | $7,000 | $15,000 |
| Excess | None | None | None |
| Co-payment | 20%, fixed | 20%, fixed | 20%, fixed (routine care is paid at 100%) |
| Illness waiting period | Not applicable (injury only) | 14 days | 14 days |
| Injury waiting period | 0 days | 0 days | 0 days |
| Dental option | Not available | Optional add-on, $350 limit | Optional add-on, $350 limit |
Underwriter: Tower Limited, rated A- (Excellent), stable outlook, a rating effective from April 2021. Administrator: AWP Services New Zealand Limited trading as Allianz Partners, acting under a binder as Tower's agent. Both policies are reimbursement-based, paid by direct credit to a nominated New Zealand bank account, not to the vet directly (Comprehensive & Essentials Policy Wording; Accident Only Policy Wording, both retrieved 17 September 2026). Tower's FSP (Financial Service Providers) register number is not published on the pet insurance page, either policy wording document, or Tower's Publicly Available Disclosure page.
Disclosure: QuoteHub does not sell this policy on this page. Its licensed advisers may receive commission from an insurer if you take out cover through them.
No dollar excess, but a mandatory 20% on every claim
Tower's FAQ states it directly: "we do not have a fixed excess or minimum claim amount" (Tower Pet Insurance page, retrieved 17 September 2026). Instead, "a mandatory co-payment of 20% is required for all Plans," deducted from every treatment claimed, not as a once-a-year deductible (Comprehensive & Essentials Policy Wording, retrieved 17 September 2026). It is not selectable; there is no option to trade a higher co-payment for a lower premium or vice versa. On a $1,500 vet bill under Comprehensive, that is 20% of $1,500 = $300 you pay and $1,200 Tower pays, before any sub-limit applies. The one exception is the Comprehensive Plan's routine-care allowance, which is paid at 100% with no co-payment. See pet insurance excess explained NZ for how this compares with insurers that charge a dollar excess.
Cruciate and patella claims: no extended wait, but a lower sub-limit
Tower's Claims Waiting Period table lists only four items: illness (14 days), injury (0 days), routine care (14 days, Comprehensive only) and the optional dental benefit (90 days). No separate or longer waiting period is stated for cruciate ligament, patella luxation or hernia (Comprehensive & Essentials Policy Wording, retrieved 17 September 2026). Instead, Tower controls exposure to these conditions with a dedicated dollar sub-limit: $1,500 on Comprehensive and $800 on Essentials or Accident Only, well below the plan's full annual limit. See cruciate ligament surgery cost for dogs NZ for what the surgery itself typically costs against that sub-limit.
Chronic conditions: covered for life, but capped at the year of diagnosis
This is the clause worth reading before you buy. If a pet is diagnosed with an "ongoing condition" (Tower's examples: asthma, diabetes, kidney disease, cancer, heart disease, osteoarthritis, skin allergies), Comprehensive and Essentials keep paying for it at every renewal for the rest of the pet's life, provided cover never lapses, but "the maximum amount we will pay during the pet's lifetime for the ongoing condition... will be the benefit limit or sub-limit that applied in the period of cover when the ongoing condition first presented" (Comprehensive & Essentials Policy Wording, retrieved 17 September 2026). The wording's own worked example: a cat diagnosed on Essentials (a $7,000 aggregate) keeps a lifetime cap of $7,000 for that condition even after the owner later upgrades to Comprehensive's $15,000 aggregate. The Accident Only Plan works differently again: an ongoing injury is covered for 18 months from first occurring, not for life. Compare this against insurers whose annual limit simply refreshes every year at lifetime vs annual pet insurance NZ.
Age limits
Tower's minimum enrolment age is 8 weeks, the same for cats and dogs, across all three tiers. The maximum age to start a new Comprehensive or Essentials policy is a pet's 8th birthday for standard breeds, or the 5th birthday for a named list of "select breeds" that includes Great Danes, Rottweilers, Bulldogs, Mastiffs, Dachshunds, Boxers and St Bernards (Comprehensive & Essentials Policy Wording, retrieved 17 September 2026). The Accident Only Plan's own wording states only the 8-week minimum and does not restate an upper age ceiling anywhere in that document; the 8th/5th-birthday limit appears only on the marketing page and in the Comprehensive & Essentials wording. Once a pet is already insured, Tower states it "will provide cover throughout their lives," though renewal itself is stated as discretionary, not a guaranteed right (Tower Pet Insurance page, retrieved 17 September 2026). More age detail at pet insurance age limits NZ.
Dental, desexing and vaccination
Dental is not part of any tier's core cover. It is a paid optional extra (Section 3), available only on Comprehensive and Essentials, with a $350 limit, the same 20% co-payment and a 90-day wait from the date the add-on starts; the Accident Only Plan does not offer dental at all (Comprehensive & Essentials Policy Wording, retrieved 17 September 2026). Separately, the Comprehensive Plan's small routine-care allowance ($50 per claim, up to two claims a year, no co-payment) does include dental check-ups and scale-and-polish. Desexing and vaccination are both defined as "routine care," which is excluded from core cover on every tier; only Comprehensive's $50-per-claim, two-claims-a-year allowance touches it at all, and that is capped at $100 a year in total, well short of a typical desexing bill. See how this compares with other insurers at does pet insurance cover dental NZ and does pet insurance cover desexing and vaccinations NZ.
Claims
Tower's stated route is an online claim form through its dedicated portal, with clinical notes, receipts and any other supporting documents Allianz Partners "reasonably ask for" (Comprehensive & Essentials Policy Wording, retrieved 17 September 2026). Tower states claims "generally" take 5 to 10 working days once all details are provided, with more complex claims taking longer (When to claim pet insurance, retrieved 17 September 2026). Payment is made by direct credit to your own nominated bank account, not paid to the vet. See how to claim pet insurance NZ for the general process across insurers.
Multi-pet discount
Tower does not publish a pet-specific multi-pet discount. Its general multi-policy discount, which applied across products like car and house rather than to a second pet, has been discontinued for new customers: "We've made some changes and no longer offer the multi-policy discount" (Tower Multi-Policy Discount page, retrieved 17 September 2026). Existing customers who already had the discount keep it only until their next renewal. See multi-pet insurance discounts NZ for insurers that still offer one.
What Tower's wording does not say
Two gaps are worth flagging because they are absent, not because Tower has hidden them behind a paywall. First, the word "bilateral" never appears in either policy wording; the closest clause is a general definition of "condition" that groups repeat presentations of the same diagnosis together regardless of which side of the body is affected, but Tower never states this applies to, say, a second cruciate ligament tear in the other knee. Second, neither document, nor Tower's public disclosure pages, names an FSP register number for Tower Limited or AWP Services New Zealand Limited. Both PDF policy wordings carry a 2021 document code and no internal date newer than an "effective April 2021" rating footnote, with no newer replacement document found on tower.co.nz as at 17 September 2026. See pre-existing conditions and pet insurance NZ for how other insurers treat paired body parts.
Questions people ask
Does Tower Pet Insurance have an excess?
No. Tower charges no dollar excess on any plan; instead every claim carries a fixed, non-selectable 20% co-payment ("we do not have a fixed excess or minimum claim amount") (Tower Pet Insurance page, retrieved 17 September 2026).
Who actually underwrites Tower Pet Insurance?
Tower Limited is the underwriter. The policy is issued and managed by AWP Services New Zealand Limited, trading as Allianz Partners, acting as Tower's agent under a binder (Comprehensive & Essentials Policy Wording, retrieved 17 September 2026).
Does Tower pay the vet directly?
No. Tower's policy wording states claims are paid to you by direct credit to a nominated New Zealand bank account "unless you tell us to pay someone else" (Comprehensive & Essentials Policy Wording, retrieved 17 September 2026); Tower does not market a direct-to-vet payment network. See pet insurance that pays the vet directly NZ.
Can I insure an older dog or cat with Tower?
Only on a new Accident Only policy, whose own wording states no upper age ceiling. New Comprehensive or Essentials cover stops at a pet's 8th birthday (5th for select breeds); a pet already insured before that age keeps renewing under Tower's stated practice of lifetime cover (Comprehensive & Essentials Policy Wording, retrieved 17 September 2026).
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 licensed NZ adviser can compare the pet insurers on your pet's details. Get pet cover quotes.
Adviser's view
QuoteHub's read is that Tower's structure is simple to explain (one fixed co-payment, no dollar excess) but its two policy wording documents carry no revision date newer than an April 2021 footnote and neither publishes an FSP number, which is worth knowing before you rely on either document.
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Cite this page QuoteHub NZ (2026). Tower Pet Insurance NZ: Plans, Limits and Claims. www.quotehub.co.nz/pet-insurance/tower-pet-insurance. Updated 2026-09-17.
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