Compare NZ insurers side by side

This tool puts any two verified licensed New Zealand life and health insurers side by side across eight dimensions — legal entity, ownership, financial strength, the brands each one underwrites, published claims statistics, distribution, and where each stands on QuoteHub’s advice panel. Every fact carries its own linked source and date, and where something is not published or not verified, the table says so instead of guessing. It deliberately computes no score and declares no winner: which insurer suits you depends on your needs, the wording of the specific products you would actually hold, and your own underwriting outcome — none of which an insurer-level table can measure.

Choose two insurers to compare

The default comparison below shows AIA New Zealand against Partners Life — both major adviser-channel insurers on QuoteHub’s panel — and the selectors swap in any other verified licensed insurer. Direct brands such as AA Life, NZ Seniors, OneChoice and Southern Cross Life Insurance are not listed as columns because they are not licensed insurers: each appears inside the “brands it underwrites” row of the insurer that actually issues its policies, which is whose balance sheet stands behind the cover.

Comparing AIA New Zealand and Partners Life across 8 verified dimensions. Your selection stays on this page — it does not create a new web address.

compared dimension by dimension from QuoteHub’s verified evidence register. Every changing fact carries its own linked source and date; unverified facts are stated as gaps. No composite score is computed and no winner is declared.

Dimension	AIA New Zealand	Partners Life
Legal entity	AIA New Zealand Limitedtrades as AIA New ZealandLicensed insurer on the RBNZ register of licensed insurers, verified 15 Aug 2026.	Partners Life Limitedtrades as Partners LifeLicensed insurer on the RBNZ register of licensed insurers, verified 15 Aug 2026.
Ownership	Part of AIA Group, one of the largest life insurers in the world, with a presence in 18 markets across Asia-Pacific. About AIA New Zealand, retrieved 18 Aug 2026	Owned by Dai-ichi Life, the Tokyo-listed Japanese life insurance group, which announced its acquisition of 100% of the shares in parent Partners Group Holdings Limited in 2022. The completion date is not stated on the pages captured — a recorded gap. A.M. Best’s 5 February 2026 rating action confirms the ownership is in place. Partners Life announcement · A.M. Best rating action, 5 Feb 2026, retrieved 18 Aug 2026
Financial strength ratingGrades from different agencies use different scales and are not comparable — see the scale guide.	Fitch Ratings: AA (Very Strong)Effective date not published — verified against the RBNZ register 15 Aug 2026. Source: AIA NZ (own disclosure page), verified 15 Aug 2026.	A.M. Best: A (Excellent)Effective 5 Feb 2026. Source: Partners Life (own disclosure page), verified 15 Aug 2026.
Brands it underwrites	Own brand only — no separately branded products are recorded against this insurer in QuoteHub’s evidence register (verified 15 Aug 2026).	Own brand only — no separately branded products are recorded against this insurer in QuoteHub’s evidence register (verified 15 Aug 2026).
Published claims statisticInsurers choose their own basis and period — these figures are context, never a like-for-like score.	92% of all claims received in calendar 2024, with $829.6 million paid (the total includes GST, maturities and surrenders). AIA’s claims page also states 91% of claims and $790.3 million paid for calendar 2025. Basis: all claims received, per calendar year. AIA Claims Compass press release · AIA claims page, retrieved 18 Aug 2026	95% of all assessed claims paid between 1 April 2024 and 31 March 2025, with more than $325 million paid in that year. Basis: all assessed claims, April–March year. Partners Life claims brochure 2025, retrieved 18 Aug 2026
Distribution	Adviser and directSells mainly through financial advisers, with simpler Starter Plans available to buy online. About AIA New Zealand, retrieved 18 Aug 2026	Adviser onlySold through financial advisers rather than direct — the website’s purchase path is “find an adviser”, and there is no public online quote-and-buy tool on the pages captured. partnerslife.co.nz, retrieved 18 Aug 2026
Position on QuoteHub’s panel	On QuoteHub’s advice panel — one of the insurers our advisers can place cover with, as listed on our disclosure page.	On QuoteHub’s advice panel — one of the insurers our advisers can place cover with, as listed on our disclosure page.
QuoteHub review	Read QuoteHub’s AIA New Zealand review	Read QuoteHub’s Partners Life review

What this comparison cannot tell you

An insurer-level comparison answers questions about companies — who owns them, how strong their balance sheets are rated, what they publish about claims. It cannot answer the three questions that actually decide whether a policy is right for you, and it is important to be plain about why.

Product wording. A policy is a contract, and what a claim pays turns on the wording of the specific product and product generation you hold — condition definitions, exclusions, stand-down periods and built-in benefits all differ between products from the same insurer, let alone between insurers. No insurer-level row can stand in for reading (or having an adviser compare) the actual policy documents.
Underwriting outcomes. The terms you are offered depend on your health, occupation, smoking status and history. Two people comparing the same two insurers can receive different exclusions, loadings or declines — and nothing here is an indication that any insurer would accept you on standard terms. Actual terms always require the insurer’s underwriting.
Price. QuoteHub publishes no premium dollar figures on public pages, and this table contains none. What you would pay depends on your age, health, occupation, smoking status, cover amounts and policy structure, and is only meaningful as a personalised quote — an insurer-level number would mislead more than it informs.
Claims statistics are not a league table. Each insurer chooses its own basis (“claims received”, “assessed claims”, “new claims”), product scope and twelve-month window, so a higher percentage does not by itself mean a more willing payer. The table states each figure’s own basis and period for exactly this reason.
Rating grades are not cross-comparable. A.M. Best, S&P and Fitch use different scales, so letters can only be read against their own agency’s definitions (grades per the RBNZ register of licensed insurers, verified 18 August 2026) — our
financial strength explorer
explains each scale.

Because of all of the above, this page never recommends an insurer. If you want the comparison that actually matters — the specific products you would hold, on your underwriting profile — that is personalised financial advice, and a licensed adviser can do it with you: book a free review or start a cover check.

Methodology

Every cell in the comparison comes from QuoteHub’s evidence register — the same dataset behind our

financial strength explorer

and insurer reviews — which records each fact with its source URL, retrieval date and verification date. Financial strength ratings are cross-checked against the Reserve Bank of New Zealand’s register of licensed insurers and sit on a 90-day review cycle with a day-of-publish re-check; claims statistics are transcribed from each insurer’s own published pages with their basis and period attached; ownership and distribution statements come from the insurers’ own published pages, retrieved on the dates shown in each cell.

Where a fact is not published, or has not yet been verified to publication standard, the cell says so — a gap is recorded as a gap, never filled with a plausible guess. The insurers available in the selectors are the verified licensed life and health insurers in QuoteHub’s register; rows whose business details are not yet verified to publication standard (for example UniMed, Booster Assurance, Hallmark Life, Beneficial Insurance and Tiaki Toa) are excluded entirely rather than shown half-empty, and each exclusion is a recorded gap, not an editorial judgement.

This tool compares insurers as companies. It computes no composite score, ranks nothing, and orders its selectors alphabetically. Comparison selections happen entirely on this page — there are no per-pair web addresses. Changelog: first published 18 Aug 2026 with eight dimensions across the verified licensed insurers; material corrections will be noted here.

Where QuoteHub stands

QuoteHub’s advice panel — the insurers our advisers can place cover with — is listed on our disclosure page. Insurers outside that panel appear in this tool as market information only: we compare them because they hold New Zealand insurance licences, not because we have any commercial relationship with them, and the panel row of the table states which side of that line each insurer sits on.

Financial advice is provided by Craig Smith Business Services Limited, trading as Smiths Insurance & KiwiSaver, a licensed Financial Advice Provider (FSP712931). This page is general information, not personalised advice, and nothing in it is a recommendation of any insurer or product. Data last reviewed 18 Aug 2026.

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