Momentum Life vs Asteron Life: Compare life, funeral and other cover

Momentum Life vs Asteron Life: which is a better fit for you?

Momentum Life suits you if being accepted matters more than being covered immediately. Its two flagship products ask no health questions, and apply a 24-month stand-down of different scope for each instead. Asteron Life suits you if you want cover working from day one and can answer health questions.

Guaranteed acceptance removes the risk of being declined, loaded or excluded when you apply. It replaces that risk with a waiting period during which a death from illness pays nothing, pays your premiums back, or pays in full if the condition is new, depending on which product you hold.

Asteron Life's underwriting works the other way round. You answer health and lifestyle questions, and you may be declined, charged more or have a condition excluded. In exchange, the death benefit works from the day the cover starts.

Scope is the second difference, and for some households it is the larger one. Momentum Life sells funeral cover and life cover, and nothing else.

Asteron Life's Personal Insurance bundles eight separately selectable covers, including:

• Life Cover
• Accidental Death Cover
• Trauma Recovery Cover
• Total and Permanent Disablement (TPD) Cover
• Cancer Cover
• Income Protection Cover
• Workability Cover
• Mortgage and Living Cover

If you want cover for surviving a serious illness rather than only for dying of one, Asteron Life is the only one of the two that offers it.

A third difference sits underneath both. Asteron Life's funeral range and Momentum Life's Funeral Insurance pay the whole sum insured as funeral money. Two of Asteron Life's four funeral-related Life Cover benefits reduce the payout: funeral advancement and repatriation come out of the life benefit. A third, funeral conversion, converts part of the life benefit rather than paying alongside it. Only its optional Funeral benefit sits on top.

Momentum Life and Asteron Life side by side

Momentum Life sells three products: Funeral Insurance, Quick Life, and Platinum Life. Asteron Life sells two quite different things that both involve funeral money. One is a standalone Guaranteed Life and Funeral Cover range. The other is the adviser-sold Personal Insurance policy, whose Life Cover carries funeral benefits inside it.

Neither insurer publishes a rate table, because both price individually. So the comparison below covers underwriting, entry ages, cover amounts, and stand-downs rather than premiums.

Several cells in Asteron Life's funeral column read 'not published' on purpose. Asteron Life states on its own page that a stand-down applies, that exclusions apply and that claim conditions apply. It then refers you to a policy wording it does not publish anywhere. The mechanics of its Personal Insurance policy are not transferable to that range, because the two products are underwritten differently.

The Life Cover column's blank entry ages and sum insured are a different kind of blank. Those are schedule fields, set for you individually when your cover is arranged, rather than a band Asteron Life advertises.

How you buy: direct online or through an adviser

Momentum Life sells directly to you online, and Asteron Life does not sell directly at all. Whose products the person advising you can compare is the bigger difference. That is where the two models diverge, not the channel.

Momentum Life gives advice on its own products only. Its Disclosure Statement says so plainly, and says two further things worth reading twice:

• It will not consider whether its products meet your financial needs and goals. That includes whether you need insurance at all, and whether the premiums are affordable for you.
• It cannot advise on insurance you already hold elsewhere.

Momentum Life's sales people are nominated representatives, which is a defined category in New Zealand law rather than a job title. A nominated representative is engaged to give advice on the provider's behalf and is expressly not a financial adviser or a financial advice provider. The provider must have controls that limit the nature and scope of the advice they give, and that regulate what advice is given and the circumstances in which it is given.

Momentum Life discloses that its nominated representatives can receive incentives of up to $60 per policy. Those are deferred, and paid only on policies that stay in force for a minimum period.

Asteron Life's route is the other model, going through an insurance broker or adviser instead. They are independent third parties rather than employees, and Asteron Life says they generally sell a range of different insurers' products. Policywise is one of those advisers.

Asteron Life's funeral range is adviser-routed too, so there is no direct option anywhere in its range. Even the simple-issue funeral product offers to put you in touch with an adviser rather than selling to you online.

The Financial Markets Authority puts the trade-off neutrally. Advice you pay nothing upfront for is normal in insurance. You should recognise that you may be offered a limited choice of options from only one provider. Its own checklist asks whether the adviser told you which products they can advise on. Some specialise, and they must disclose their scope of service.

Funeral insurance vs life insurance

Funeral insurance buys a small, fast sum meant to cover a funeral, and usually accepts you without health questions. Life insurance usually buys a much larger underwritten sum meant to replace what your household loses. The two overlap, because several life policies carry funeral money inside them.

A moderate New Zealand funeral with around 50 people attending costs about $11,700 for a cremation and $14,300 for a burial. Those are the funeral industry's own recent survey figures. The itemised ranges behind that figure sit wider still:

• Professional services fee: $3,000 to $6,500.
• Burial plot plus interment: $1,000 to $8,000, on 2024 council costs.
• Cremation fee: $600 to $1,100.
• Casket: $1,200 to $5,000.

State help does not stretch far against those numbers. A Work and Income Funeral Grant pays a maximum of $2,697.43, and may not be payable at all if other help is available to you. ACC's funeral grant is larger at up to $8,236.40, but it only applies where the death was caused by an accident.

Funeral bills arrive before an estate is settled. Probate usually takes 6 to 8 weeks, and longer during busy periods. Two rules keep insurance money moving faster than that:

• From 24 September 2025, an insurer can pay out up to $40,000 without a grant of administration, up from $15,000. The Administration Act also allows funeral expenses to be paid directly out of that money where nobody has claimed it.
• Naming a beneficiary on a life policy creates a trust in their favour. The money does not form part of your estate, or become subject to your debts.

Momentum Life says Funeral Insurance claims are usually sorted within 24 to 48 hours once it has the paperwork. Asteron Life pays the sum insured to the policy owner, the estate or any nominated beneficiaries. It does not publish a turnaround figure for its funeral range.

Standalone funeral cover and funeral money built into life cover are not the same purchase.

A standalone funeral policy is its own contract. The whole sum insured is the funeral money. Momentum Life's Funeral Insurance works this way, paying $3,000 to $30,000 for a non-accidental death. So does Asteron Life's Guaranteed Life and Funeral Cover range, which pays the sum insured to the owner, the estate or nominated beneficiaries.

A funeral benefit attached to life cover is a feature of a larger policy, and it is usually an advance rather than an addition. Asteron Life's funeral advancement benefit pays the lesser of your Life Cover sum insured and $15,000 for a sole policy owner, or $25,000 where there is a surviving policy owner. It reduces the Life Cover sum insured by the amount paid.

Momentum Life's Platinum Life works the same way, with a $10,000 Advance Funeral Payment available after 24 continuous months that comes off the final benefit.

The practical consequence is easy to miss. With an advance, your funeral money and your life cover are the same money, paid earlier. With a standalone policy, or with a benefit that sits on top, they are separate.

Three of Asteron Life's benefits do sit on top rather than reducing anything:

• Funeral assistance on Income Protection and Mortgage and Living Cover reimburses direct funeral costs, up to three times the monthly benefit. Each cost is reimbursed once across all your Asteron Life policies.
• The optional Funeral benefit on Life Cover is separately selected, and pays up to $30,000 per insured across all Asteron Life policies. It does not reduce Life Cover.
• Grief support reimburses up to $2,500 of counselling from an approved counsellor, payable up to twice over the policy term.

Grief support is not funeral money, and a counselling reimbursement cannot pay a funeral director.

The Insurance and Financial Services Ombudsman published consumer guidance on funeral insurance in December 2025, and the points it raises apply to any provider:

• Funeral insurance is a risk product, not a savings or investment plan. If you stop paying premiums, your cover lapses.
• As people age, the total premiums paid can often exceed the amount that would be paid out.
• Many funeral insurance policies only pay out in the first 12 months if the death is accidental.

That last point is a statement about the market as IFSO sees it, not a rule that applies to either insurer here. Momentum Life's three products carry a 24-month any-cause stand-down, a 24-month pre-existing-conditions-and-suicide stand-down, and a 13-month self-inflicted exclusion respectively.

Asteron Life confirms that its funeral range has a stand-down without publishing its length. The honest sentence names the product rather than the category.

IFSO's case studies show what those terms look like when a claim goes wrong:

• A woman arranged $20,000 of funeral cover for her husband in May 2010. By 2020 she had paid more in premiums than the sum insured. Premiums were payable until he turned 90, with no option to reduce or stop them. IFSO contacted the insurer, which offered to cancel the policy and refund all premiums.
• A terminal-illness death inside the first 12 months was declined, because the policy covered accidental death only in that period. The complaint could not be upheld.
• In one complaint, a daughter's claim on $25,000 of cover arranged in 2012 failed after a 2024 death. She had mistakenly not named herself as beneficiary, and could not provide legal proof of entitlement on the estate's behalf. That complaint was not upheld.

One more point worth knowing before you compare claim-handling promises. The Fair Insurance Code applies to all insurance products except life and health policies. So its claim-turnaround benchmarks do not apply to a funeral or life claim at all.

Funeral insurance is a minority purchase in New Zealand, and take-up differs by ethnicity.

The Financial Markets Authority surveyed 2,081 New Zealanders between 22 July and 12 August 2024. It found that 5% of non-Māori men and 6% of non-Māori women held funeral insurance, against 11% of tāne Māori and 10% of wāhine Māori.

For context, 37,491 deaths were registered in Aotearoa New Zealand in the year ended December 2025.

A prepaid funeral plan is the third option, and it works differently again. The funeral industry's "Now For Them" plan is not a savings or investment product, and pays no interest or return on contributions. It excludes the first $10,000 from residential care asset testing under current Ministry of Social Development policy.

If you are weighing the three against each other, the funeral insurance guide sets out how funeral cover works in New Zealand in more detail.

Where funeral cover stops: trauma, cancer and income protection

A funeral payout solves one problem, which is the cost of dying. It does nothing for the costs of surviving a serious illness: lost income, unfunded treatment, and a mortgage that keeps falling due while you are not working. Those are the exposures trauma, cancer, and income protection cover are built for.

Start with what the state does not do. ACC covers personal injuries caused by accidents, including mental injuries linked to those events. It does not cover illness, sickness, contagious diseases, or age-related health concerns. So for a cancer diagnosis, a heart attack or a stroke, there is no accident-compensation backstop.

Rising survival is part of why this gap has grown. New Zealand's 5-year cancer survival has risen from 58% to 68% over roughly two decades, still behind Australia's 73%. More people live through a serious diagnosis than used to, which moves the financial problem from funeral costs to living costs.

Those living costs can be large:

• Southern Cross paid $42 million across 2,500 members' claims for Pharmac and non-Pharmac approved drugs and their administration in 2023. One recent claim was a course of chemotherapy costing more than $200,000.
• The average cost of non-funded drugs was described as $10,000 a month, which means Southern Cross's own $10,000 non-Pharmac drug cap does not go far.
• Administration can cost more than the drug. New Zealand rules prevent unfunded drugs being administered in public hospitals. One Auckland patient paid $46,000 for 12 sessions over 6 months to have an unfunded medicine administered privately. The drug itself was price-capped at $25,000.

Household financial stress has moved in the same direction. In the year ended June 2026, $538.2 million was withdrawn from KiwiSaver for financial hardship, up from $59.4 million in the 2016 financial year. That was 52,330 members, against 10,670 a decade earlier.

Inland Revenue's hardship category is broad, and is not broken down by cause. It covers living expenses, rent or mortgage, medical or dental treatment and other pressures together, and shows the scale of the problem rather than its source.

Over-65s feel it sharply, especially when a health condition arrives after retirement. The Retirement Commission's research on the cost of ageing found that a major health-related expense can be very difficult to consider without health insurance. It also found that some people cancel cover as premiums rise in later life, at the point they are most likely to need it.

This is where trauma insurance does the work a funeral policy cannot. Trauma cover, also called critical illness cover, pays a lump sum on diagnosis of a listed condition rather than on death, and the money arrives while you are being treated.

Income protection replaces part of your income month by month while you cannot work. Momentum Life sells neither. Asteron Life sells both, and they are covered in more detail further down this page.

If you have never priced the living-costs side of your cover, that is a sensible thing to check at your next review.

How to choose between Momentum Life and Asteron Life

Four things separate Momentum Life from Asteron Life: mainly whether you can answer health questions and how long you wait for full cover, and to a lesser extent whether you need cover for surviving an illness and whether the person advising you can compare more than one insurer.

• Whether you can answer health questions.
• How long you wait for full cover.
• Whether you need cover for surviving an illness as well as dying.
• Whether the person advising you can compare more than one insurer.

The comparison table above answers the first two, underwriting and the stand-down period. The third, cover for surviving a serious illness, is set out earlier in this comparison and in the sections on each insurer's range below. The fourth is a difference in kind rather than degree, and New Zealand law draws the line for you.

Anyone giving you regulated financial advice must give priority to your interests. That means taking all reasonable steps to ensure the advice is not materially influenced by their own interests, or those of a connected person.

They must take reasonable steps to ensure you understand the nature and scope of the advice, including any limitations on it. They must have the competence, knowledge, and skill for the advice, and meet the Code of Professional Conduct's ethical-behaviour and client-care standards.

Similar duties frame both channels. What differs is the scope disclosed underneath them. Momentum Life discloses that it advises on its own products only. It will not assess whether you need insurance, or whether the premiums are affordable for you. An independent adviser's scope covers the insurers they are contracted with.

The Financial Markets Authority's consumer guidance is worth reading alongside the numbers. Policy definitions differ between providers. It recommends understanding your provider's definitions of terms such as 'permanent disability', 'employment' and serious medical conditions, with an adviser to help interpret them.

Sorted makes the same point more bluntly: insurance is complicated and can be set up in many ways, so consider speaking to a financial adviser rather than using an online comparison site.

It's worth avoiding a decision based on the first year's premium alone. Policies that are cheaper initially can be more expensive long-term. Most premiums go up annually based on your age or inflation. That is the practical difference between Momentum Life's stepped products and its level-premium funeral cover, and between Asteron Life's stepped and level options.

If you already hold cover and are thinking of switching, treat it as a high-risk transaction rather than a shopping decision. The FMA lists the specific risks:

• Differences in cover between the old policy and the new one.
• A new qualifying period.
• Pre-existing exclusions on the new policy.
• A claim being declined that your original policy would have accepted.
• Lower premiums in the short term, against higher costs in the long run.

Its 2018 review of replacement business found that most 'new' life insurance written in New Zealand is actually replacement insurance. Fewer than half of the firms reviewed told customers that replacing their cover could mean worse cover or lost benefits.

Non-disclosure is one of the clearest, most measurable reasons to get underwriting help. About 10% of complaints to the IFSO Scheme involve non-disclosure. New Zealand law here is harsh, and does not distinguish between innocent and deliberate non-disclosure. The remedy an insurer has is to avoid the policy back to the beginning, and treat it as if it never existed.

Two real outcomes show the range:

• A man died of stage 4 colon cancer at 31. A teenage colonoscopy and a nutritional anaemia diagnosis had not been disclosed and were material. The insurer could have cancelled the policy from the beginning. Instead it paid the reduced cover it would have offered, which was half his life benefit.
• In another complaint, a life policy was avoided over an undisclosed abnormal HbA1c result (a blood-sugar marker) and a heart murmur. IFSO obtained three independent prudent-underwriting opinions, and the insurer reinstated the policy and paid $66,560 using a retrospective 50% loading.

New Zealand's test is what a prudent underwriter needs to know to underwrite the risk. Would they provide cover, and if so, would they charge a higher premium or add exclusions?

A reformed regime is coming under the Contracts of Insurance Act 2024, but it is not yet in force. It received Royal assent on 15 November 2024, and commenced on dates set by Order in Council. Any part not yet in force takes effect automatically on the third anniversary, so by 15 November 2027 at the latest. Until then the position above is current law.

Disputes are rising across the sector, which is context rather than a mark against either insurer. IFSO completed a record 833 dispute investigations in the year to June 2026, up 46%, and handled 3,977 cases including 2,602 complaints. In the prior year to 30 June 2025, 29% of accepted disputes concerned health, life, or disability insurance.

Policywise is an independent adviser, not an insurer, and its disclosed panel is public. Asteron Life is on it for life and disability policies. Momentum Life is not, and appears nowhere on the page.

That has two practical consequences for you:

• Policywise can quote Asteron Life for you. That covers all eight Personal Insurance covers: Life, Accidental Death, Trauma Recovery, Cancer, Income Protection, Workability, Mortgage and Living, and TPD Cover. Talk to a Policywise adviser and Policywise will price it against the other insurers it advises on. Premiums are individually underwritten, so there is no rate table to look up.
• Policywise cannot quote Momentum Life. It sells direct, and it is not a provider Policywise advises on. If you want its pricing, you would go to Momentum Life.

The insurer pays Policywise, not you, and that is disclosed too. If you take out insurance, the insurer pays a fee to Policywise. Policywise's disclosed duties are to give priority to your interests, exercise care, diligence, and skill, and meet the Code of Professional Conduct's standards.

Policywise's value to you sits in the parts of this decision that are hardest to do alone. That includes getting the disclosure right at application, reading two insurers' definitions against each other, and reviewing your life insurance for family as your household changes.

How Momentum Life and Asteron Life compare as companies

Star ratings on comparison sites are not evidence. What follows comes from the public registers and each company's own disclosures.

Ownership. Momentum Life is wholly owned by DCG Invest Limited, which has no ultimate holding company, and its three equal shareholders all hold New Zealand addresses, so it is New Zealand owned all the way up.

It underwrites its own risk and says it is supported by Hannover Re. Asteron Life is ultimately owned by Japan's Nippon Life Insurance Company, which completed its acquisition of Resolution Life on 31 October 2025.

Acenda Life. Asteron Life states that from 2027 it will become Acenda Life, subject to regulatory approval, and that nothing changes today for customers' policies, cover, benefits, premiums or claims rights.

Regulatory record. Both insurers belong to IFSO, so your complaint route is identical. The FMA's enforcement-case list contains no case against either.

Financial strength, solvency and claims paid

Both insurers clear the Reserve Bank's solvency requirement, but the figures are not like-for-like. Asteron Life reports 107% as at 30 June 2026 and Momentum Life 117% as at 30 September 2025, nine months apart. Momentum Life's current disclosure could not be verified, so 30 September 2025 is the latest figure we could source. Please recheck it before publishing.

On the ratio, Momentum Life is higher. On scale, Asteron Life's solvency capital is roughly 73 times Momentum Life's. Same test, different balance sheets.

Do not compare the rating letters. Asteron Life holds an "A+" (Strong) from Fitch Australia Pty Ltd. Momentum Life carries a "B" in the A.M. Best column of the Reserve Bank's register, which A.M. Best defines as "Fair."

These are different agencies' scales, and on Fitch's scale "B" would sit at "Weak", so setting A+ against B as rungs on one ladder would badly misstate the comparison. Use the solvency ratio for a like-for-like number.

Only Asteron Life publishes claims figures:

Momentum Life publishes no claims total, acceptance rate, decline rate, in-force premium or policyholder count. That is a fact about what each company makes public, not a finding about how either handles claims.

What does Momentum Life offer?

Momentum Life offers three products:

• Funeral Insurance
• Quick Life Insurance
• Platinum Life Insurance

All three pay a lump sum on death, and all three are bought direct rather than through an adviser. None of them covers trauma, income protection, disablement or health costs.

That is a deliberately narrow range, and it describes itself as such: "Simple and easy Life and Funeral Insurance for New Zealanders." Two of the three ask no health questions at all, which is the whole proposition.

Everything below comes from Momentum Life's own product pages and its three published policy wordings. Where a product page and a policy wording say different things, both are noted, because the wording is the contract and the page is not.

Momentum Life Funeral Insurance

Momentum Life Funeral Insurance is guaranteed-acceptance funeral cover for New Zealanders aged 40 to 75. It pays $3,000 to $30,000 on a non-accidental death, and $9,000 to $90,000 on an accidental death. It asks no health questions, and applies a 24-month stand-down in exchange.

How the stand-down works. For the first 24 months the policy covers accidental death only. If the life insured dies from any cause other than accidental death inside that window, the benefit is not paid. Momentum Life refunds all premiums paid for that life since the cover start date instead.

After 24 months you are fully covered. An accidental death pays three times the amount you chose, where the death occurs within 90 days of the accident.

Premiums and cover in later life. Premiums are level, so they stay the same as you age rather than rising each year. From your 89th birthday you pay no more premiums, and the cover continues. The 13-page policy wording contains no indexation or automatic-increase clause, so the sum insured you buy is the sum insured you keep.

Family cover. Momentum Life's product page advertises cover for up to four people, with a $150 saving per additional family member. The policy wording confirms the $150-a-year discount per additional life, and that additional people must be a partner or relative. It does not state a four-life cap, so that cap rests on the website alone.

A 10% cashback offer, not a policy benefit. Momentum Life's page advertises that qualifying customers automatically get back 10% of premiums paid after the first 12 months of continuous cover. The offer applies to Funeral Insurance policies bought after 22 April 2022. The word 'cashback' does not appear anywhere in the policy wording, so treat it as an advertised offer rather than a contractual benefit.

Three things this product does not include, each confirmed by a full-text search of the wording:

• No terminal illness benefit. The word 'terminal' does not appear in the 13-page wording, and the product pays on death only.
• No repatriation or grief-counselling benefit.
• No pre-existing-conditions clause. 'Pre-existing' does not appear either; the 24-month stand-down does that work instead.

That last point is worth stating carefully, because it cuts both ways. Momentum Life does not exclude your existing conditions by name. It also does not pay out on them, or on anything else other than accident, for the first 2 years.

Momentum Life Quick Life and Platinum Life Insurance

Momentum Life's two life products split on underwriting. Quick Life is guaranteed-acceptance life cover for ages 18 to 65 with no medical exams, from $50,000 to $300,000 per life insured. Platinum Life is simplified-issue cover for the same ages, meaning health and lifestyle questions but no medicals in most cases, from $50,000 upwards.

Quick Life acceptance now, conditions later. Quick Life includes a 2-year waiting period for suicide or intentional self-inflicted injury, and for pre-existing conditions. A new condition that arises after the policy starts is covered in full from day one. That is a meaningful difference from Funeral Insurance's any-cause stand-down.

'Pre-existing' is defined broadly here. It covers any illness, condition or symptom you had, should reasonably have been aware of, or sought treatment for. The look-back period is the 2 years before the policy started, a cover increase, or a reinstatement. It also includes named health markers such as very high blood pressure, cholesterol over 7.0, a BMI over 40, or complications related to diabetes.

The 19-page Quick Life wording also refers twice to further conditions that can be permanently excluded and are listed in your individual policy. It does not set out that list in the published document. So the published wording is not the complete picture of what is excluded for you; your own policy document is.

Other Quick Life mechanics worth knowing:

• Joint policies can carry up to $500,000 in total. The sum insured rises automatically by 3% a year, to age 75 or the $500,000 cap.
• Premiums are stepped, rising each year with your age, gender, and smoking status, then become fixed from age 75.
• Cover runs for life, and a free $20,000 lifetime benefit applies from age 75.
• Terminal illness pays where an illness is expected to lead to death within 12 months, confirmed by a Momentum Life-approved medical practitioner. Momentum Life may seek an independent second opinion at its own cost, and that opinion is final.

Platinum Life: health questions, and cover from day one. Platinum Life has no general stand-down. Its only death-benefit exclusion is for suicide, attempted suicide or intentional self-injury within the first 13 months of the policy being issued or reinstated.

Cover amounts are age-banded at application: a maximum of $1,000,000 for ages 18 to 54, $750,000 for 55 to 60, and $500,000 for 61 to 65. One policy can cover a maximum of two adult lives.

Three Platinum Life features stand out:

• A $10,000 Advance Funeral Payment, available once the policy has been held for at least 24 consecutive months and paid while the claim is assessed. It is an advance against the balance of the Life Insurance Benefit, so it reduces the final payout by $10,000. Momentum Life can recover it if the claim is later declined.
• Free Interim Accidental Death Cover for up to 30 days while Momentum Life assesses your application. It equals the lesser of the sum applied for or $500,000, and ends on the earliest of 30 days, withdrawal, or notice of refusal or acceptance. The existence of interim cover confirms a Platinum Life application can be declined.
• A Free Financial Planning Benefit of up to $3,000, reimbursed for licensed financial-planning advice. It becomes available automatically from the third policy anniversary, and is payable once per policy, within 12 months of an accepted claim.

Cover increases by 3% each year to age 75, premiums are stepped, and after age 90 you pay no more premiums while cover continues. Terminal illness pays on a 12-month prognosis by a licensed medical practitioner, with no independent-second-opinion clause. That is a small but real difference from Quick Life.

One inconsistency to be aware of. The 15-page Platinum Life wording contains no general pre-existing-condition clause, confirmed by full-text search. Its marketing page nonetheless warns that any pre-existing medical conditions may not be covered and that waiting periods may apply. If that gap matters to your circumstances, the wording is the document to ask about.

What does Asteron Life offer?

Asteron Life offers two quite different things. One is a standalone funeral range, sold as Guaranteed Life and Funeral Cover on simple-issue terms for ages 50 to 79. The other is Personal Insurance, a single adviser-sold policy bundling eight separately selectable covers, each individually underwritten.

Personal Insurance is the larger part of the range, and it is where most of Asteron Life's funeral and bereavement money sits. As explained above, Asteron Life's Personal Insurance bundles eight separately selectable covers. Your policy schedule records which of them apply to you, along with each cover's sum insured, waiting period and benefit period.

Because they sit in one policy, the covers share a set of built-in and optional benefits rather than each carrying its own. That is why funeral money appears in several places below rather than in one.

Two structural features apply across Personal Insurance. There is a 17-day free-look period, and the policy carries no cash value. Asteron Life also guarantees to upgrade the policy, assessing claims on the more favourable of the original or current wording, with a carve-out for pre-existing conditions. It guarantees to continue cover until each cover expires.

Policywise advises on Asteron Life, so it can give you the cost and cover detail for any of these products. Premiums are individually underwritten and there is no published rate table. Book a callback if you want Asteron Life priced against the other insurers on its panel.

Asteron Life Funeral Insurance

Asteron Life does sell standalone funeral insurance. Asteron Life describes it as "a range of Guaranteed Life and Funeral Cover products", and calls those products funeral insurance on its own page. Cover is available to anyone aged 50 to 79 who meets the eligibility criteria. It is a simple issue, meaning you do not need to provide detailed medical information to get cover.

That simple-issue basis and the 50-to-79 entry band are the real points of difference against a fully underwritten Life Cover. You are not asked for detailed medical information. In exchange, the product is aimed at an older band than Momentum Life's Funeral Insurance, which starts at 40.

What Asteron Life publishes about the range:

• What it pays and to whom. Claims are paid when the person insured dies or, where eligible, is diagnosed with a terminal illness. On acceptance, Asteron Life pays the sum insured to the policy owner, the estate or any nominated beneficiaries.
• Premiums. Premiums are level, so they stay the same as you age unless you change the sum insured. Asteron Life says most products in the range have fully guaranteed premiums. Those would not increase over time, except on changes in tax or market conditions.
• Cover after 90. You stay covered after age 90 as long as you keep paying premiums. Cover also continues once Asteron Life tells you no more premiums are due.
• Becoming paid-up. Some policies in the range stop requiring premiums, for example at a certain age or after a certain time in force. Asteron Life does not disclose that age or duration. It says it will let you know when you can stop paying.
• A premium holiday. Depending on your policy, if you are unemployed or in financial hardship you may be able to request a premium holiday of up to 6 months. Claims can still be made during that time, and you do not have to repay the missed premiums if you claim.
• No refund on lapse. If you stop paying or cancel, there is no refund of premiums already paid and you cannot make a claim.

One gap is worth knowing about before you buy, and it is a gap in what Asteron Life publishes rather than in the cover itself. Asteron Life's page says your policy wording explains the premiums you pay and how long you pay them. It also names stand-down periods, the exclusions that apply and when a claim can be made.

That sentence confirms a stand-down exists, but Asteron Life does not publish the wording itself. It does not state the stand-down's length, the sum insured range, what happens on a death inside the stand-down, or whether an accidental death is treated differently.

Momentum Life publishes its complete 13-page funeral policy wording at a public URL. Asteron Life publishes none for its funeral range. That is a factual difference in what each company makes public, not a judgement about either product. It does mean you would need the wording from an adviser before you could compare the two funeral products line by line. That is the ordinary way an adviser-sold product works.

The range is also absent from Asteron Life's own product index. That index lists Life, Accidental Death, Trauma, Cancer, Income Protection, Workability, Mortgage and Living, TPD, and three business lines, without mentioning funeral cover. Asteron Life still presents the product on its own page, and this article describes it as presented.

A related product, and it is a different one. Asteron Life also underwrites AA Life Funeral Cover, an AA-branded product distributed by the New Zealand Automobile Association. Asteron Life's own claims page reports a line reading "Life (including AA Life)." AA Life Funeral Cover has a full public policy document, covering ages 50 to 79 with guaranteed acceptance and a 24-month any-cause stand-down.

Nothing establishes that it shares terms with Asteron Life's own-branded Guaranteed Life and Funeral Cover. Its published mechanics should not be read across to the Asteron Life range.

Asteron Life Cover, and the funeral benefits built into it

Asteron Life Cover is an individually underwritten life cover inside the Personal Insurance policy, and it pays the sum insured on death. It carries four funeral-related mechanics:

• Funeral advancement and repatriation are advances that reduce Life Cover.
• Funeral conversion permanently converts part of Life Cover rather than paying on top of it.
• The optional Funeral benefit does not reduce Life Cover at all.

Your sum insured, entry age and cover term are set on your individual policy schedule rather than advertised as a band. Those are questions for your adviser. Cover is subject to Asteron Life's acceptance and approval of a complete application.

Here is how the funeral money is structured. The Asteron Life insurance guide covers these benefits in more depth.

Funeral advancement pays an advance from your Life Cover when a life insurance claim is accepted, to meet immediate expenses such as a funeral. It reduces Life Cover by the amount paid, and it is reduced by any Funeral benefit sum insured you hold. For a sole policy owner, funeral advancement and repatriation share a combined $15,000 cap.

Repatriation reimburses the direct cost of returning the insured person's remains to New Zealand or to their home country, on the same caps. It also reduces Life Cover. Momentum Life offers no repatriation benefit on any of its three products.

Funeral conversion lets you convert up to $30,000 of Life Cover into a level-premium Funeral benefit. It is exercisable at the expiry of a level-premium term. It is also exercisable on the first anniversary after the later of 10 years from commencement and the insured turning 65. Asteron Life's own brochure describes it as available at any time once you have had Life Cover for more than 10 years and are 65 or older.

The optional Funeral benefit is the one that behaves like standalone funeral cover. It is separately selected rather than built in, and pays up to $30,000 per insured across all Asteron Life policies on death or terminal illness. It does not reduce Life Cover. Its premiums do not increase with age, and stop at the anniversary after age 90.

Life Cover carries two further early-payment benefits that matter to anyone weighing it against a funeral policy:

• Terminal illness pays the full Life Cover sum insured on a specialist diagnosis of a life expectancy of 12 months or less, even with treatment available. Asteron Life says it normally pays this within seven days of a claim being placed.
• Terminal specific condition advancement advances the lesser of 30% of the Life Cover sum insured or $250,000. It is paid once, and it reduces Life Cover. It triggers on unequivocal specialist diagnosis of one of eight listed conditions, or on a life expectancy of 24 months or less with survival for 30 days without life support.

The death benefit itself excludes death caused directly or indirectly by an intentional self-inflicted act, sane or insane. The exclusion runs for 13 months from the Life Cover starting, from a sum-insured increase (for the increased portion only), or from the most recent reinstatement.

A carve-out applies where the cover replaces death cover that had been continuously in force for more than 13 months. Otherwise the death benefit pays the sum insured, less any amounts already paid out. Those deductions cover terminal illness, an accelerated cancer, trauma or TPD claim, funeral advancement, repatriation, and terminal specific condition advancement.

Two more mechanics shape what your cover is worth over time:

• Premium structure. Premiums are either stepped or level. Stepped premiums are recalculated each anniversary on your age, sex, occupation, smoking status, cover, and any loadings. Level premiums are fixed until the level term expires, then converted to stepped. A premium freeze option holds the premium and reduces the cover instead.
• Inflation adjustment and special events. The sum insured increases annually by the greater of CPI or 2% before age 100, unless you decline it. A special events increase lets you raise your Life, Accidental Death, Trauma, Cancer, and TPD sums insured without new medical evidence.

It applies after a defined life event: marriage, divorce, the birth or adoption of a child, a new mortgage of $25,000 or more, or a salary rise of $5,000 or more. You must be under 60, and the increase is capped at the lowest of 75% of the starting sum insured, $300,000, five times the salary increase, or the loan amount.

Momentum Life's equivalents are simpler and smaller. Quick Life and Platinum Life both increase 3% a year to age 75. Momentum Life's Quick Life and Platinum Life product pages make no mention of a special-events increase or premium freeze.

Asteron Life's other cover, and the funeral and bereavement support it carries

Six of Asteron Life's other seven covers carry some form of funeral or bereavement support, and the type matters. Income Protection and Mortgage and Living Cover carry Funeral assistance, which reimburses real funeral costs. Trauma Recovery, Cancer, TPD, and Accidental Death Cover carry Grief support only, which is counselling money, not funeral money.

Here is how funeral assistance and grief support are split across Asteron Life's other covers:

Funeral assistance is the benefit that does funeral work. It reimburses direct funeral costs on the insured person's death, up to three times the monthly benefit. Each cost is reimbursed once across all your Asteron Life policies. It is a reimbursement on top rather than an advance, so it does not reduce anything else. It attaches to Income Protection and Mortgage and Living Cover only.

Grief support reimburses up to $2,500 for grief counselling from an approved accredited counsellor, excluding a policy owner, business partner or relative. It is payable up to twice over the policy term, and once per claim. The first session must fall within 13 months of the event, and all sessions must be completed within 2 years. It attaches to every cover except Workability Cover. Grief support is counselling money, and it cannot pay a funeral bill or be counted as if it could.

Here is what each of the other covers actually does:

• Trauma Recovery Cover pays a lump sum on diagnosis of a listed condition or on listed surgery. It can be accelerated, which reduces Life Cover, or stand alone, which requires you to survive 14 days. It includes an early-stage cancer partial benefit. A 3-month deferred cover start date applies to asterisked medical events, unless the cover is a replacement benefit. Those events are cancers and most heart conditions. The Asteron Life trauma insurance guide covers the condition list and the reinstatement option in detail.
• Cancer Cover pays on diagnosis, accelerated or stand alone, with its own early-stage cancer partial benefit.
• TPD Cover pays on total and permanent disablement, accelerated (reducing Life Cover) or stand alone (waiving Life Cover premiums up to the amount paid).
• Income Protection and Mortgage and Living Cover pay a monthly benefit after a waiting period selected on your schedule. Each ends on the insured person's death. The Asteron Life income protection guide covers all three monthly-benefit covers together.
• Workability Cover pays only for sickness or injury not covered by ACC, and not for any period you are eligible for ACC weekly compensation. It is the one cover in the range carrying neither Funeral assistance nor Grief support.
• Accidental Death Cover pays the entire sum insured where death is solely from an accident with a visible injury within 90 days. It excludes death resulting from or contributed to by terminal illness, sickness or an intentional self-inflicted act. It carries Grief support, but not funeral advancement, funeral conversion or repatriation, which are Life Cover benefits.
• Kids Cover is an optional shared benefit. It pays a $15,000 Kids Cover funeral benefit on a covered child's death, plus a base sum insured for listed serious conditions or major surgery, where the child survives 14 days. A $10,000 partial benefit applies to serious accidental injury. Cover rises by $10,000 at ages 6, 10, 14 and 18 to a $200,000 maximum, and converts to adult cover after 21.

So what should you take from all this if you already hold Asteron Life cover?

If you hold Life Cover, Income Protection or Mortgage and Living Cover, there is already funeral money attached to it. Whether you still want a separate funeral policy depends on how much, and on whether an advance against your life cover suits your household. If you hold Trauma Recovery, Cancer, TPD, Accidental Death, or Workability Cover only, none of them pays funeral costs on your death. Grief counselling money is not a substitute.

Whether any of that means you no longer need standalone funeral cover is a judgement, not a product fact. It depends on your own circumstances, your existing sums insured, and who depends on you. It is the kind of question worth putting to an adviser who can see all of your policies at once.

A household with Asteron Life trauma, cancer, or income protection cover is protected against a wider set of situations than a funeral policy covers. Those include surviving a serious illness, being unable to work, and losing the ability to pay a mortgage. Momentum Life's range does not extend to any of those.

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