Many New Zealanders have their Medical/Health insurance cover through Southern Cross Healthcare. Southern Cross Health Society (a charitable trust) has been around since 1961 and has traditionally provided Health Insurance through the workplace. There are a range of health insurance policies offered, from KiwiCare and RegularCare (which are the base plans) to Ultracare 400 which…
Sovereign sale to AIA In September 2017, Sovereign was sold to the large asian insurer AIA for $4.15 billion. Sovereign protects more than 646,000 New Zealanders. The important thing is that the terms and conditions of the policies are contractually governed by the policy documents and the sale does not affect any insurance cover that…
On the 25th October 2018, AMP announced that (subject to regulatory approvals), the business that had been the cornerstone of financial services in Australia and New Zealand for many years would exist no longer. As a result of a well known ‘portfolio review’ which has been going on for many months, AMP will be broken…
There are a lot of myths around Cancer – and what happens with cancer. These short videos made in Canada look at some the of the common myths circulated about what causes cancer: Cancer Mythbusters: Antiperspirant and breast cancer Cancer Mythbusters: When to get a PAP test Cancer Mythbusters: Tanning beds vs. the real…
A client of ours in Wellington has been/is going through the exhausting and stressful process of claiming for the damage caused to his house by the Kaikoura earthquakes in November 2016. The latest event is that he wanted to make sure that his heritage home was properly insured, and wanted to increase the cover, in…
As someone who has lived down the end of a shared driveway for over 22 years, this article in the NZ Herald caught my attention. I have confirmed the situation with our Fire and General insurance broker, and they said: All non EQC cover natural disaster claims have an excess of $5000. Type of…
Fire and General insurance (that is insurance on houses, contents, vehicles, boats, professional indemnity, public liability insurance) is something that we don’t know a lot about here. We can answer any question that you have about insurance on you as a person (life, trauma, income protection, mortgage repayment, health insurance etc), but not about fire…
When our clients discuss their travel plans, we are pretty heavy handed on insisting that they put in place travel insurance (and good quality insurance too). Your credit card insurance might be good quality – read the wording and policy document. It is vital that you know the rules of your travel insurance. In particular,…
Since the beginning of 2016 we have been highlighting cyber risks with our clients, with a focus on protecting your assets and finances by having good cyber security. With Hurricane Harvey, Hurricane Irma, Mexico’s earthquake all top of mind, the article from the Economist highlighting how criminals make money from disasters struck a chord. The…
On July 9th, 2017 – eight months after moving into our brand new dream home, we had a massive power surge that blew up our brand new appliances, the switchboard, lights and various other things. (Suffice to say we now have $1000 of additional power surge protectors installed.) While it was a real hassle not…
The IFSO (Insurance and Financial Services Ombudsman) regularly provides its members with case studies on actual claims before it. Here are some interesting case notes on real life cases on non disclosure: Recent non-disclosure cases seen by the IFSO Scheme Vehicle insurance http://www.ifso.nz/assets/Uploads/133707-2016.pdf When Ben bought a car, his finance company arranged the insurance.…
When we work with clients to put in place new insurance cover, I think we might annoy clients by nagging them to remember everything that might ever have happened to them, even if there isn’t a question on the policy relating to that topic. Although it might be annoying, there is method in our madness…