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

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

Momentum Life fits you if you want funeral cover with no health questions and you are aged 40 to 75. nib fits you if you are comfortable with medical underwriting (or Easy Health's claim-time eligibility check) and want wider protection, because its funeral and bereavement benefits only ever come attached to health, life, or disability cover.

Momentum Life and nib are not competing for the same purchase. Momentum Life is a direct insurer that publishes three products and sells two to new customers. Between them they pay on death or terminal illness only.

nib sells health insurance and now a seven-product life and living suite through advisers (the April 2025 launch covered six; Life & Living Temporary Cover followed in April 2026). It treats funeral money as one benefit inside those policies.

Momentum Life and nib side by side

Momentum Life publishes three products and sells two to new customers. nib sells 10 plans in this article's scope: three health plans and seven life and living covers. The ranges barely overlap. Both insurers pay out on death. Momentum Life pays it as the whole product; nib pays it as a benefit built into broader cover.

Platinum Life is in the table because existing policyholders still hold it, but it’s not open for new clients. Momentum Life's own purchase page says it is no longer available for new policies.

How you buy: direct with guaranteed acceptance, or through an adviser

nib's in-scope plans are sold only through an adviser, and Momentum Life is sold mainly direct. The channel is not the whole story, though. The other half of it is what the person selling to you is allowed to advise on.

Momentum Life's own Disclosure Statement names three ways it reaches customers:

• Directly, through its websites and advertising material.
• Digitally, through online straight-through purchase.
• Through its nominated representatives, who are salaried and can earn incentive payments of up to $60 a policy.

Its Quick Life wording also contemplates adviser-arranged sales, noting that advisers act as intermediaries only and are not the insurer. What stays constant is the scope of the advice.

nib took the opposite route. It launched the Ultimate Life & Living suite on 3 April 2025 as six products available exclusively through advisers. It also names Easy Health, Ultimate Health, and Ultimate Health Max as the health plans sold through an independent licensed financial advice provider.

That puts an independent adviser in the middle of every purchase of the nib plans this article covers. Sorted, the Retirement Commission's consumer service, suggests speaking to a financial adviser rather than using an online comparison site. It also suggests choosing a broker or adviser who is independent, rather than one selling policies from a single insurance company.

Policywise is disclosed to advise on nib for health, life, and disability cover, alongside seven other insurers, and the insurer pays the adviser rather than you. That covers the parts a comparison table cannot: which plan your medical history will actually get accepted on, what a personal exclusion means in practice, and someone to call at claim time.

Talk to a Policywise adviser if you want nib priced against the rest of the panel.

Maximum entry age, and when cover ends

Momentum Life accepts funeral applicants aged 40 to 75. Its premiums stop at the 89th birthday, while cover continues for life. nib's Ultimate Life accepts applicants aged 16 and over with no expiry age. nib's health cover publishes no maximum entry age and no end age at all.

Here’s Momentum Life, product by product:

• Funeral Insurance: entry 40 to 75, premiums end at the 89th birthday, cover for life.
• Quick Life: entry 18 to 65, premiums fixed once the life insured turns 75, cover for life.
• Platinum Life, for existing policyholders only: entry was 18 to 65, with no premiums payable after age 90.

nib is more varied, because the ages attach to benefits rather than to the policy:

• Easy Health, Ultimate Health, and Ultimate Health Max: the policyowner must be at least 16. Health cover renews annually with no stated end age. Dependent children are covered to 21 and then move automatically to adult cover and adult age-rated premiums. The optional Serious Condition cover ends at the policy anniversary after the insured person's 70th birthday. The Waiver of Premium Benefit, which keeps the policy in force with no premiums payable if specific conditions are met, operates only while the policyowner is under 70.
• Ultimate Life: available to applicants aged 16 at entry, with no expiry age. The figures sit on nib's adviser-plans page and in its own Ultimate Life Insurance Benefit Sheet rather than in the policy wording.
• Ultimate Income Protection, agreed value and indemnity: agreed value fixes the payout in advance, and indemnity recalculates it from your income at claim time. The minimum policyowner age is 16, there is no maximum application age in the wording, and any expiry date is shown on your policy schedule. Benefit payment periods run five years, to age 65, or to age 70.
• Ultimate Trauma, Ultimate TPD, and Ultimate Mortgage Protection: no entry or expiry age appears in the wordings. All three are set on the individual policy schedule, and nib's own documents direct you to its underwriting guidelines or to an adviser.

One figure is easy to mistake. nib also sells a separate Life and Living Insurance product direct, with its own entry ages of 18 to 70 for life cover and 18 to 60 for living cover [nib, n.d.-d]. That product sits outside this article's scope, so the 16 that applies to Ultimate Life and the 18 on that page are two different products rather than a contradiction.

Funeral insurance vs life insurance

Funeral insurance covers one cost at one moment, the bill for a funeral. Life insurance replaces a much larger sum for whatever your family needs next, from a mortgage to years of lost income. IFSO categorises these products by the risk each covers.

IFSO groups the products this way: life insurance covers the risk of death, trauma insurance covers specified life-threatening health conditions, and income protection or disability insurance covers the inability to work. The FMA treats life insurance as the umbrella category that includes income protection.

Two things about funeral cover specifically matter before you buy. IFSO states that funeral insurance is a risk product rather than a savings or investment plan, and that cover lapses if you stop paying premiums. It adds that as people age, the total premiums paid can often exceed the amount that would be paid out.

Momentum Life says much the same in its own wording: the policy is not a savings or investment plan, and the total premiums you pay could exceed the benefit.

There is no official New Zealand figure for what a funeral costs, which makes "enough to cover a funeral" hard to size. What does exist are caps on what the state will meet and one industry survey:

• The Work and Income funeral grant pays a maximum of $2,697.43, effective 1 April 2026.
• ACC pays a separate funeral grant where a death resulted from a covered accident. The Act's base figure is $4,500, and ACC's indexed amount is $8,236.40 from 1 July 2026.
• A New Zealand Funeral Directors Association review of council cemeteries found an average burial cost of $4,359 across the centres reviewed, with Tauranga rising to $8,426 in a year. That is a plot and cremation fee figure, not an all-in funeral bill.

Momentum Life's funeral cover does have one practical advantage in speed and direction. It pays valid claims usually within 24 to 48 hours of approval. The money goes to the policy owner, or on their death to the beneficiaries they nominated, or failing that to the executor of the estate.

Naming a beneficiary is easy to overlook. One IFSO complaint failed because the deceased's daughter had not been named as beneficiary, and had to prove she was the estate's executor instead. IFSO could not require the insurer to pay outside the policy terms [IFSO, n.d.-c]. See the funeral insurance guide for more.

Funeral cover gaps: Serious illness, injury, disability, and income loss

Funeral cover pays only when you die, leaving four gaps alive: serious illness, injury, disability, and income loss. Serious illness is the sharpest of the four: in 2022 New Zealand recorded 28,492 cancer registrations against 10,538 cancer deaths. Those costs land while you are alive.

The same pattern shows up across other serious conditions:

• Te Aho o Te Kahu expects annual cancer diagnoses to rise from over 30,000 in 2025 to more than 45,000 by 2044, and five-year survival is reported improving from 58% to 68%.
• About 195,000 people in New Zealand are living with heart disease, around 12,000 are hospitalised for a heart attack each year, and almost 30% of deaths here are caused by cardiovascular disease.
• Around 9,000 strokes occur each year and about 2,000 people die from stroke, while roughly 89,000 people, 2.1% of the population, are living with the effects of one today.

Does ACC cover?

ACC does not fill that gap, because it is built around injury rather than illness. It excludes injury caused wholly or substantially by a gradual process, disease, or infection. It excludes cardiovascular and cerebrovascular episodes outside narrow exceptions, and injury caused wholly or substantially by the ageing process.

Even where ACC does accept a claim, that acceptance does not travel. In IFSO complaint 00232983 a funeral policy paid its base $10,000 benefit but declined the extra accidental-death benefit, because the death was not caused solely by an "Injury" as the policy defined it. ACC had separately accepted the same death as a treatment injury. IFSO's reasoning was that ACC assesses claims on different criteria to those in the policy.

Where ACC does pay for lost earnings, it pays 80% of weekly earnings, capped at $1,341.31 a week. That cap is the comparator for income protection, and it only applies to injury.

How about medicine funding?

Medicine funding is a second gap. Pharmac decides which medicines are funded within a fixed budget, and Medsafe approves them for use, which are two separate decisions.

Pharmac's own Official Information Act response put approximately 3,800 medicines with full or provisional Medsafe approval against 1,353 chemicals and 3,388 formulations funded by Pharmac as at 1 September 2023. Those counts are now three years old, and they remain the clearest published New Zealand quantification of the gap.

nib sells cover aimed at all three gaps, and Momentum Life does not. Its three current products pay on death or terminal illness only, and it sells no health cover. On the nib side:

• Trauma cover. nib Ultimate Trauma pays the full amount insured for one of 51 full trauma conditions, or the lesser of 25% of the amount insured or $100,000 for one of 18 partial conditions. For cancer, heart attack, and stroke this is the cover that pays while you are still being treated. See the nib Ultimate Trauma Insurance review.
• Income protection. Both nib Ultimate Income Protection variants replace income when illness or injury stops you working, which ACC will not do for an illness. See the nib income protection insurance review, and the comparison of trauma insurance vs income protection if you are weighing the two.
• Unfunded medicines. Easy Health and Ultimate Health each carry a Non-PHARMAC Cancer Treatment Benefit of $20,000 a year for chemotherapy and immunotherapy given in a private hospital. Ultimate Health Max instead has two broader base benefits, in hospital and at home, covering any Medsafe-approved medicine with no separate sub-cap.

How to choose between Momentum Life and nib

Choose Momentum Life if you want funeral cover you can get with no health questions. Choose nib if you can be underwritten and want the funeral money sitting inside cover that also pays while you are alive. The decision is about which of those two problems you are solving.

If you want funeral or bereavement support and can be underwritten, your options narrow quickly. The nib plans that carry it as a built-in benefit are the seven listed in the table under "What does nib offer?" below.

A few questions usually settle it:

• Can you be underwritten? If a health condition means underwritten cover would carry a permanent exclusion or a loading you cannot live with, guaranteed acceptance has real value, and Momentum Life's funeral policy asks no health questions.
• How old are you? Momentum Life's funeral cover starts accepting at 40 and stops at 75. nib's health funeral benefit pays only up to age 64, and Ultimate Life stops accepting new applicants at 70.
• Is a funeral the only cost you are covering? If the answer is no, the funeral benefit is a feature rather than a product, and the plan it sits inside is what you should be comparing.
• How much is the cover actually worth over time? Funeral premiums keep running for decades, and IFSO has said plainly that the total can exceed the payout.

Policywise is not disclosed to advise on Momentum Life, so it cannot quote or place any Momentum Life product [Policywise, n.d.]. If you want Momentum Life, you buy it from Momentum Life. If you want the nib plans compared against seven other insurers, book a callback with Policywise.

How Momentum Life and nib compare as companies

The two differ in size, in what they disclose, and in who rates them, which matters if you are weighing which insurer stands behind your cover. The three sections below take each in turn, using government registers and each insurer's own published figures rather than third-party review scores.

Who owns Momentum Life, who holds the licence and who underwrites the cover

DCG Invest Limited owns 100% of Momentum Life Limited, holding all 1,100 shares. Momentum Life Limited holds the Reserve Bank insurer licence and underwrites its own policies, so there is no separate underwriting insurer behind the brand.

The company was incorporated on 16 September 2015 as company number 5807730, and the register shows no previous names. Its own site says it was "established in 2018", and both dates are right. The Reserve Bank's register of licensed insurers gives Momentum Life Limited a licence effective date of 12 March 2018.

Its Companies Office filing history fits the same shape, with the constitution amended in February 2017, three new directors consented in December 2017, and the first annual financial statements lodged in October 2018.

Two further pieces of the ownership picture:

• Momentum Life's own leadership page confirms the shareholding. Its chief executive and an executive director each hold their stake via DCG Invest Limited.
• Momentum Life also holds a Financial Markets Authority licence in the Financial Institutions category, FSP472286, granted 31 March 2025 and currently active. That is a conduct licence, separate from and additional to the 2018 prudential insurer licence.

One thing it does not publish is the name of its reinsurer. Its About Us, financial-strength, awards, and Journal pages all repeat the same unattributed line. It was established in 2018 to bring a new offer direct to New Zealand, "backed by one of the largest reinsurance groups in the world." The backing is stated; the backer is not named anywhere on the site.

Key facts about nib: its Australian parent, Orbit Protect and its NZ presence

nib nz limited is owned by nib holdings limited, an Australian company listed on the ASX under the code NHF. nib entered New Zealand by buying an existing insurer rather than starting one. nib's own site lists three New Zealand acquisitions since 2012.

The Companies Register records the whole history. nib nz limited was incorporated on 24 February 1994 as National Mutual Medicare Limited. It became National Mutual Blue Cross and then National Mutual Health. It traded as Tower Medical Insurance Limited from 2000 to 2013, and then took the nib name. nib's own site dates the acquisition to 2012, followed by OnePath's medical business in 2015, and Kiwi Insurance Limited in 2022 for NZ$45 million.

That left nib running two licensed New Zealand insurers, one for health and one for life and living. It amalgamated them into the single entity nib nz limited on 30 June 2025, and policies previously insured through the life entity are now insured by nib nz limited. The Reserve Bank cancelled nib New Zealand Insurance Limited's licence on 10 July 2025.

Orbit Protect sits alongside all of that rather than inside it. OrbitProtect was established in New Zealand in 2005, became part of nib NZ in 2022, and continues to trade under its own brand.

The register shows ORBITPROTECT LIMITED incorporated on 2 February 2005, at the same registered address as nib nz limited and under the same ultimate parent. It sells travel and visitor insurance for international students, workers, and inbound visitors, which is a different product line from the health, life, and disability cover this article compares.

On scale, nib publishes group and segment figures rather than a New Zealand member count. The group provides health insurance to over 1.4 million Australian and New Zealand residents, and nib New Zealand reported FY26 underlying operating profit of $27.5 million against a $2.9 million loss in FY25.

Financial strength, solvency and claims paid

nib nz limited holds an A (Strong) financial strength rating from S&P Global Ratings Australia, and Momentum Life holds a B (Fair) rating from A.M. Best. The two come from different agencies on different scales, so the letters cannot be read against each other directly.

Solvency is the other half of the picture, and both insurers report on the same measure at the same date:

A solvency ratio measures capital against the regulator's requirement, so it describes compliance headroom rather than size. On the ratio the two look close, at 107% and 118%. On the dollar margin they are not close: Momentum Life's 107% rests on a buffer of $0.6 million, and nib's 118% on $98.8 million.

Both insurers meet the Reserve Bank's standard, and that is what a ratio tells you.

Claims disclosure differs more sharply than either figure. nib reported $174.1 million in incurred claims in the half year to 31 December 2025. That figure was described as record claims, up 9% on the prior corresponding half. That figure covers its health book, and nib publishes nothing separately for the life and living suite, which is only 18 months old.

On the other hand, Momentum Life publishes no claims percentage and no claims figure at all. Its claims page and its financial-strength page carry no numbers, only a statement that valid claims will be paid without unnecessary delay.

What does Momentum Life offer?

Momentum Life sells two products to new customers: Funeral Insurance and Quick Life. Both are guaranteed acceptance, with no health questions and no medical exams. A third, Platinum Life Insurance, is closed to new business and serviced only for existing policyholders.

Its published range is those three products. Between them they pay on death or terminal illness only, and the company's Disclosure Statement names two advised product lines, Underwritten Life Insurance and Funeral Insurance.

What that means in practice:

• No health cover. A full-text search of all three current wordings returns nothing for medical insurance, health insurance, or hospital cover, and no page on the site names a health product.
• No disability or income cover. The same search returns nothing for income protection, mortgage protection, total and permanent disability, or TPD, and there is no claim form or page for any of them.
• You buy it yourself. The application is three steps online, answer a few questions, see your price, and pay, with a phone alternative. Cover starts on the Acceptance Date and a Policy Schedule follows approval.
• Claims are fast. Valid funeral claims are usually paid within 24 to 48 hours of approval, in New Zealand dollars.

Two mechanics apply across the range. Momentum Life can cancel a policy if premiums stay unpaid for more than a month, after written notice. Reinstatement is not automatic on any of the three products. Outstanding premiums must be paid, and Momentum Life must approve.

The definition of "New Zealand Resident" also differs by product for temporary-visa holders. Quick Life and Platinum Life require six months continuously in New Zealand on a valid temporary work visa, and Funeral Insurance requires 12.

Momentum Life Funeral Insurance: sum insured, waiting period and entry age

Momentum Life Funeral Insurance pays a lump sum of $3,000 to $30,000, with guaranteed acceptance for New Zealanders aged 40 to 75 and no health questions or medicals. For the first 24 months it pays only for accidental death. After that it pays for death from any cause.

The 24-month rule has two parts. In the first 24 months the benefit is payable only if the life insured dies as a direct result of an accident and the death occurs within 90 days of that accident. An accidental death inside that window pays three times the funeral insurance benefit.

The rest of the terms, from Momentum Life's own wording and product pages:

• Maximum benefit. The funeral insurance benefit cannot exceed $30,000. If the life insured is covered under more than one Momentum Life funeral insurance policy, $30,000 is the most that can be paid across all of them. The clause is written to funeral policies.
• Premiums. They are fixed and do not increase with age, and they end at the 89th birthday, with cover continuing for life.
• Family cover. Up to four lives insured on one policy, with a $150 a year discount for each additional family member.
• Cashback. Momentum Life promotes a 10% premium cashback after the first 12 months of continuous cover, for policies bought after 22 April 2022. The word "cashback" appears in neither live layout of the policy wording, and no standalone cashback terms are published anywhere on the domain. If you are buying for the cashback, ask for the terms in writing.
• Free look. Thirty days from the Acceptance Date with a full refund if you have not claimed. Outside that window you can cancel any time on 30 days' notice, but there is no refund.
• Suicide. There is no standalone suicide exclusion. "Accident" is defined to exclude self-inflicted injury, so a death by suicide falls inside the 24-month window and is covered after it.
• Pre-existing conditions. The phrase never appears in the wording. The 24-month window does the work instead, treating a new cause and a pre-existing one alike.
• What it does not include. No terminal illness benefit, no advance payment while a claim is assessed, no grief-counselling benefit, and no premium waiver. None appears anywhere in the wording.

Two administrative points can cost you money. Momentum Life can change premium rates across all policies issued under the same offer, on at least 30 days' written notice, taking effect from your next policy anniversary.

If you are under 76 you can also change your cover level at any time by phone. Any increase, or any life added, restarts the 24-month accidental-death-only rule for that portion of the cover.

Momentum Life is also explicit that this is not a savings vehicle. Its wording states that the policy is not a savings or investment plan. Depending on how long you keep the cover, the total premiums you pay could exceed the benefit it pays out.

Momentum Life Quick Life and Platinum Life Insurance

Quick Life is Momentum Life's guaranteed-acceptance life cover. It pays $50,000 to $300,000 on death or terminal illness for New Zealand residents aged 18 to 65, with no health questions and no medical exams. Platinum Life is its underwritten life product, now closed to new business.

Here’s Quick Life in detail:

• Cover amounts. $50,000 to $300,000 per life insured, with a $500,000 cap per person including automatic increases. The cap applies across all Momentum Life cover for that person. If a claim would exceed it, the benefit is reduced starting with the most recent policy and the excess premiums are refunded.
• The two-year window. Quick Life pays nothing in the first two years for death by suicide, intentional self-injury, or a defined pre-existing condition. Accidental death and new conditions are covered from day one.
• Permanent exclusions. Alcohol or drug effects outside prescribed use taken as instructed, war and war-like activity, insurrection or terrorism, criminal or illegal activity, and a defined dangerous occupation or pastime.
• Premiums. They rise each year with age, then are fixed once the life insured turns 75, and cover continues for life.
• The free $20,000 at 75. Once the life insured turns 75, $20,000 of the benefit becomes free. You can elect it as a standalone funeral benefit or keep it inside the main cover.
• Terminal illness. The full benefit is paid early on an illness expected to lead to death within 12 months, confirmed by a medical practitioner approved by Momentum Life.
• Indexation. The cover amount increases automatically by 3% a year, stopping at the $500,000 maximum or age 75, whichever comes first, with a year-by-year opt-out.
• Other terms. A 30-day free look with a full refund, no cash or surrender value, and a $50 a year partner discount.

Platinum Life is worth understanding if you already hold it, because it is the only Momentum Life product that was medically underwritten. It paid on death or terminal illness, applications were arranged mostly by phone with health and lifestyle questions, and medicals were rarely required. Its terms:

• Entry and cover amounts. Entry age 18 to 65. Maximum cover at the policy acceptance date was $1,000,000 for ages 18 to 54, $750,000 for 55 to 60, and $500,000 for 61 to 65, with a $50,000 minimum. The maximum aggregated across all Momentum Life policies for that life insured.
• Advance Funeral Payment. After 24 months in force the policy automatically gained a $10,000 Advance Funeral Payment, paid while the claim was being assessed. It forms part of the benefit, is recoverable if the claim is declined, and only one is paid per life insured across all Momentum Life life policies.
• Financial Planning Benefit. Up to $3,000 for financial planning advice from a licensed financial planner, after three years of continuous cover and within 12 months of an accepted claim. That is financial advice, not grief counselling.
• Interim cover. Applicants received free interim accidental death cover for up to 30 days while the application was assessed.
• Premiums and indexation. Premiums generally rose each year with age, with none payable after 90, and the benefit increased automatically by 3% on each anniversary until the anniversary after the life insured reached 75.
• Exclusions. Intentional or self-inflicted injury and attempted suicide were excluded within the first 13 months of the acceptance date, an increase, or a reinstatement. There was no named pre-existing-condition clause; the general duty of disclosure did that work.

Platinum Life is closed to new business, but the site is inconsistent about it. If you want underwritten life cover, that is now a conversation with an insurer that still sells it, and the nib Ultimate Life Insurance review is one place to start.

What does nib offer?

nib offers 10 plans through an adviser: three health plans and seven life and living covers, including both income protection variants and Life & Living Temporary Cover. It sells no standalone funeral policy and never has. Instead, seven of those plans carry a built-in funeral or bereavement benefit.

The adviser-available set you can choose from through an adviser:

• Health: Easy Health, Ultimate Health, Ultimate Health Max.
• Life and living: Ultimate Life, Ultimate Trauma, Ultimate TPD, Ultimate Income Protection (agreed value), Ultimate Income Protection (indemnity), Ultimate Mortgage Protection, and Life & Living Temporary Cover.

The absence of a funeral product is settled by nib's own lists rather than inferred. Its current adviser products page, which is the authoritative list of everything it sells through an adviser, has no funeral product.

Neither does its legacy insurance-products page, which records every product line it has ever sold, including closed books. Funeral cover at nib has only ever existed as a benefit bundled inside something else.

Where it does exist, it is always a base benefit. There is no optional funeral or bereavement add-on on any nib plan.

The three health plans pay the Funeral Support Benefit only if the insured person dies between the ages of 16 and 64 inclusive. The payment is excess-exempt, and it is made per deceased insured person on receipt of a death certificate.

That age bound is the sharpest contrast with Momentum Life's funeral cover, which starts accepting at 40 and pays at any age, subject to its 24-month accidental-death-only window. Ultimate Life's $25,000 figure, meanwhile, is confirmed both in nib's policy wording and in its own public Ultimate Life Insurance Benefit Sheet.

Several nib lines sit outside this comparison: its direct-channel Hospital and Everyday plans, its separate direct-sold Life and Living Insurance product, and its travel, overseas visitors, home loan, and credit card repayment insurance.

nib Ultimate Life insurance

nib Ultimate Life is underwritten life cover that pays the amount insured on death, available to applicants aged 16 to 70 at entry with no expiry age. Built into it is a Bereavement Assistance Benefit of the lesser of $25,000 or the amount insured, paid towards funeral costs.

That benefit is an advance rather than an addition. It is payable before or alongside the Life Cover Benefit claim on death, and it reduces the amount insured by the amount paid. nib can recover it if the life claim is later declined. Two further death-related benefits are also built in:

• Repatriation Assistance Benefit. Reimburses the direct cost of repatriating the body where death occurs overseas, to New Zealand, the person's country of permanent residence, or their country of birth. The limit is the lesser of $20,000 or 25% of the amount insured, it also reduces the amount insured, and one payment is made per person insured across all nib policies.
• Parents Grieving Benefit. On the death of a natural or legally adopted child under 21, it pays $2,000 if the child was under 10 and $15,000 if 10 or older. This one is paid in addition to the amount insured, is available after 12 months of continuous cover, and allows one claim per child.

Ultimate Life also pays early in two situations. The Terminal Illness Benefit pays the full amount insured on diagnosis of an illness or injury likely to result in death within 12 months.

The Terminal Condition Benefit pays the lesser of 30% of the amount insured or $250,000, where death is likely within 24 months but not within that 12-month window. That payment reduces the amount insured, and the premium adjusts accordingly.

Support benefits are built in too. A Counselling Benefit of up to $2,500 per person insured expressly reimburses grief counselling, for the policyowner, the person insured, or close relatives, after a death or a terminal diagnosis. A Financial and Legal Advice Benefit of up to $2,500 applies once the amount insured has been paid. Ultimate Life has no options section at all, so every extra benefit on it is part of the base cover.

Three practical points round it out. There is no published maximum sum insured, and nib says so itself: "There is no maximum cover amount, so you can apply for as much as you need."

Ultimate Life can be structured so that attached Trauma or TPD cover is accelerated, reducing the life amount insured when it pays, or standalone, leaving it untouched. And premiums are age-reviewed and adjusted at each policy anniversary, with no level-premium option anywhere in the suite.

Entry and expiry ages are not stated in the Ultimate Life policy document. The 16 to 70 entry range and the absence of an expiry age come from nib's adviser-plans page and its own benefit sheet.

For a fuller walk through the product, see the nib Ultimate Life Insurance review.

nib health insurance: Easy Health, Ultimate Health and Ultimate Health Max

nib's three adviser health plans run entry, mid, and top tier. Easy Health covers $300,000 surgical and $200,000 non-surgical per insured person a year. Ultimate Health and Ultimate Health Max both cover $600,000 surgical and $300,000 non-surgical, and most ancillary benefits draw down from those two pools.

Each tier carries a built-in Funeral Support Benefit: $5,000 on Easy Health, $5,000 on Ultimate Health, and $10,000 on Ultimate Health Max. All three are excess-exempt, all three are paid per deceased insured person, and all three pay only if the insured person dies between the ages of 16 and 64 inclusive.

The tiers differ in several other ways:

• Underwriting. Easy Health takes no medical history at application and checks eligibility when you claim. Ultimate Health and Ultimate Health Max require you to declare your medical history up front, which nib says gives you certainty about what is and is not covered.
• Unfunded medicines. Easy Health and Ultimate Health each carry a Non-PHARMAC Cancer Treatment Benefit of $20,000 per insured person a year, limited to chemotherapy and immunotherapy given in a private hospital. Ultimate Health Max instead splits this into two broader base benefits, in hospital and at home, covering any Medsafe-approved medicine with no separate sub-cap. Ultimate Health has no Non-PHARMAC Plus Option.
• ACC. Easy Health carries an ACC Top-Up Benefit, paying the difference between ACC's contribution and the actual cost. Ultimate Health and Ultimate Health Max add an ACC Treatment Injury Benefit on top of it.
• Loyalty benefits. All three carry Loyalty–Suspending your Cover (after one year) and a Loyalty–Sterilisation benefit after two years, $1,000 on Easy Health and Ultimate Health; Ultimate Health Max's wording gives no stated dollar cap for it. Ultimate Health Max is the only tier with Loyalty–Weight Loss Surgery and Loyalty–Breast Reduction Surgery, each $10,000 after three years.

Two mechanics apply across all three. You elect an excess, which reduces your premium and is applied once per insured person per policy year in which a claim is accepted, not once per claim. On Easy Health and Ultimate Health, where a co-payment (the member's percentage share of the eligible cost) also applies, it comes off the eligible cost first.

The excess then comes off what nib would pay next. The actual dollar excess tiers are not published and sit on your own certificate. Ultimate Health Max's December 2023 wording states no co-payment applies to Base Cover, with no First Choice Network split.

All three plans state that claim payments are not adjusted for inflation, so fixed sub-limits, the Funeral Support Benefit included, do not index.

For more detail there is the nib health insurance review.

Other nib plans available through an adviser

Beyond life and health, nib sells five more plans through an adviser: Ultimate Trauma, Ultimate TPD, Ultimate Income Protection (agreed value and indemnity), and Ultimate Mortgage Protection. Three of them pay a bereavement benefit and two pay none at all.

What each one does:

• Ultimate Trauma. Pays the full amount insured for one of 51 full trauma conditions, or the lesser of 25% of the amount insured or $100,000 for one of 18 partial conditions. A 90-day stand-down applies only to the conditions marked in nib's conditions table, and a 14-day post-diagnosis survival requirement applies to standalone claims.
• Ultimate TPD splits by age. Under 65 the test is occupation-based, Own, Any, or No Occupation; from 65 it is an ADL-based test, and each pays the full amount insured. Under 65, a 90-day inability-to-work requirement applies to the Own and Any Occupation tests, waived for 16 named Fast Track conditions, while the from-65 ADL test carries no 90-day requirement. See income protection vs TPD for the full comparison.
• Ultimate Income Protection. The agreed value version pays the agreed monthly amount insured less other income, regardless of how your income moves after inception. The indemnity version recalculates at claim time as the lesser of the monthly amount insured or 75% of actual pre-disability income, also less other income.
• Ultimate Mortgage Protection. Pays the full monthly amount insured on total disability with no other-income offset, unlike both income protection covers, and calculates its partial disability benefit on a working-hours ratio rather than an income ratio.

On funeral and bereavement money, the split is clean. Ultimate Income Protection, in both versions, and Ultimate Mortgage Protection each pay a Bereavement Support Benefit of three times the monthly amount insured.

It is built in, and it is paid in addition to any monthly amount already being paid when the death occurs. Ultimate Trauma and Ultimate TPD carry no funeral or bereavement benefit at all, confirmed by full-document searches of both wordings and by nib's own product pages.

Three features run across the suite. Every product carries a built-in Suspension of Cover Benefit, which pauses both premiums and cover. The triggers include redundancy, bankruptcy, unpaid leave, overseas travel, tertiary study, a salary cut of 20% or more, and a self-employed revenue drop of 30% or more.

A suspension runs for a minimum of 90 days and a maximum of 12 months, and is available after six months of continuous cover.

Every product carries a Counselling Benefit. Ultimate Life, Ultimate Trauma and Ultimate TPD add a Financial and Legal Advice Benefit, and the three disability covers add Childcare Support. The optional add-ons are not funeral-related either.

Both income protection covers and Mortgage Protection offer a Retirement Contribution Benefit Option, a Mental and Neural Health Restriction Option, and an Income Booster Benefit Option. Ultimate Trauma offers an Early Cancer Benefit Option and three buy-back options, and Ultimate TPD has no options section at all.

nib's adviser suite is nib Ultimate Life & Living Insurance. "Life & Living" on its own is a shared brand name: Chubb uses the same name for its own range, so check which insurer's Life & Living you are being quoted.

Deeper reviews of two of these: nib Ultimate Trauma Insurance and nib income protection insurance.

Pre-existing conditions, health questions and underwriting

Momentum Life asks no health questions at all on either product it sells, and uses a time window instead. nib asks for your medical history on every plan available through an adviser except Easy Health, which takes no medical history at application and checks eligibility at claim time instead.

Neither approach is simply better. One trades certainty at claim time for easy acceptance, and the other does the reverse.

Having pre-existing conditions doesn't mean you can't get cover at all, or that these health issues will be automatically excluded from your policy.

nib's own plans show both patterns: Easy Health covers eligible pre-existing conditions automatically after a three-year wait, while Ultimate Health and Ultimate Health Max individually underwrite them, covering a declared condition only if nib accepts it, sometimes with a personal exclusion or a premium loading.

Both sides of this are explained in more depth in the guides to health insurance for pre-existing conditions and life insurance for pre-existing conditions.

Momentum Life: guaranteed acceptance and the 24-month stand-down

Momentum Life Funeral Insurance accepts you with no medicals and no health questions, and the phrase "pre-existing condition" never appears in its policy wording. The 24-month accidental-death-only window does that work instead, treating a new cause and a pre-existing one alike.

In practice that means a pre-existing illness is not excluded forever. For the first 24 months the policy pays only if death results directly from an accident and occurs within 90 days of it. From month 25 it pays for death from any cause, including an illness you already had when you applied.

That is a different bargain from underwritten cover such as nib's Ultimate tiers, where a declared condition can carry a permanent exclusion or a premium loading for the life of the policy.

Quick Life is more explicit about it. It defines pre-existing conditions and excludes them for the first two years, alongside suicide and intentional self-injury, while accidental death and new conditions are covered from day one.

Platinum Life worked differently again. It had no named pre-existing-condition clause at all. The general duty of disclosure did the work instead. Incomplete or misleading information let Momentum Life decline a claim, cancel the policy, reduce the benefit by recalculating the premium that should have applied, or add special conditions. A failure found to be fraudulent let it treat the policy as never having existed.

One IFSO complaint involved a terminal-illness death under a year into a funeral policy. The claim was declined because that policy covered accidental death only in its first 12 months, and IFSO could not uphold it.

IFSO's 12 months there is a general market observation. Momentum Life Funeral Insurance's accidental-death-only window is 24 months; Quick Life's two-year restriction applies only to pre-existing conditions, suicide and intentional self-injury.

nib: underwritten cover, and how pre-existing conditions are handled

nib asks about your medical history on every plan sold through an adviser except Easy Health, which checks eligibility at claim time instead, and how it treats pre-existing conditions beyond that depends on which plan you buy

Easy Health excludes them for three years and then covers eligible ones automatically. Ultimate Health and Ultimate Health Max exclude them unless you declare them and nib specifically accepts them.

The three health tiers in detail:

• Easy Health uses an automatic, time-based mechanism. Pre-existing conditions are excluded for the first three years after your join date, and eligible ones then become covered without you doing anything. Six named categories stay permanently excluded regardless. Those are cancer, except treated pre-malignant forms; cardiovascular conditions meeting specified criteria; hip and knee conditions; back conditions; transplant surgery; and reconstructive or reparative surgery performed before the join date.
• Ultimate Health and Ultimate Health Max use individual underwriting. A pre-existing condition is excluded unless you declare it at application and nib accepts it, with personal exclusions or loadings possible. Neither wording contains a time-based reopening or review provision, so there is no three-year equivalent on these tiers.
• All three tiers share one exception. If a dependent child is added within four months of birth, their pre-existing conditions are covered under that cover, with congenital conditions still excluded.

Across the Ultimate Life & Living suite, pre-existing conditions are not handled by a policy-wide clause. They become individually underwritten personal exclusions listed on your policy schedule.

The definition is broad and awareness-based. It reaches any sign, symptom, treatment, or surgery you were aware of, had an indication of, sought advice for, or would reasonably have sought treatment for.

nib has repeatedly run and closed time-limited promotions on this. Each extended Easy-Health-style three-year assessment to new Ultimate Health and Ultimate Health Max applicants. One ran for applications submitted between 1 April and 30 June 2021, and another closed on 28 February 2023.

None of them is a current feature. The current wordings and current adviser pages carry the plain declare-your-medical-history rule with no reopening mechanism.

Because nib asks, the accuracy of what you tell it matters.

Notable cases

A 2017 IFSO release put non-disclosure at about 10% of complaints to the scheme. The items most often left out were pre-existing medical conditions, convictions, and claims history. IFSO also noted that a policy avoided for non-disclosure then has to be declared on every future application.

The insurer's remedy is to avoid or cancel the policy back to the beginning, and treat it as if it never existed, even where the omission was accidental. Where it surfaces at claim time, insurers will sometimes instead apply the terms they would have applied had they known.

Two IFSO cases show the range of outcomes. In complaint 00238188 a life policy was avoided over an undisclosed abnormal HbA1c result and a heart murmur. IFSO obtained three independent prudent-underwriting opinions, which varied between standard rates and a 50% loading, and the insurer reinstated the policy and paid $66,560 on a retrospective 50% loading.

In another, a man diagnosed with colon cancer at 31 later died, and his insurer sought to avoid the policy over an undisclosed childhood colonoscopy and a 2013 anaemia diagnosis. The claimant settled on half the life benefit, $95,664. Completing the application carefully, with help, can reduce the chance of a dispute like either one.

Immediate cover and stand-down periods

Momentum Life and nib both withhold full cover at the start. Momentum Life's funeral policy pays only for accidental death for 24 months, and nib excludes pre-existing conditions and applies stand-downs to specific benefits rather than to the policy as a whole.

On the Momentum Life side, interim cover existed only on the product that is now closed. Platinum Life applicants were automatically given free interim accidental death cover for up to 30 days while the application was assessed. Funeral Insurance's wording provides no interim-cover clause: cover starts on the Acceptance Date, with the 24-month accidental-only window running from there.

nib's equivalent is a separate product. Life & Living Temporary Cover is complimentary and automatic on submission of a completed Ultimate Life & Living application with a valid payment instruction, at no premium. It is accident-only rather than illness. The aggregate limit across all Temporary Cover benefits combined is $500,000, however many covers you applied for.

It then lapses on the earliest of five events. Those are the policy start date, a cancellation request, your declining the offered terms, nib deferring or declining the application, and 60 days from the completed application.

nib's health waiting periods attach to named benefits:

• Most base hospital, surgical, and cancer benefits have no waiting period from your join date.
• Removal of unerupted or impacted teeth under the Surgical Benefit requires one year of continuous cover, the Loyalty–Sterilisation Benefit two years, and Loyalty–Suspending your Cover one year.
• On the optional modules, the GP Option has a 90-day stand-down and the Dental, Optical and Therapeutic Option six months. Easy Health's own Proactive Health Option carries the same six-month stand-down.
• The Serious Condition option has a split stand-down. A named group of major cardiac, cancer, stroke, and transplant conditions requires three months on Easy Health, or 90 days on the two upper tiers. If signs or symptoms of that condition appear inside the stand-down, it is permanently excluded. Every other listed serious condition is covered from the join date.

The life and living side has its own stand-downs. Ultimate Trauma applies a 90-day stand-down to the conditions marked in its table, plus a 14-day post-diagnosis survival requirement on standalone claims. Ultimate TPD requires 90 days' inability to work, waived for its 16 Fast Track conditions.

For how a waiting period or stand-down generally works on income protection cover, see income protection waiting period explained.

Free-look periods differ, and so does where they are written down. Momentum Life gives 30 days with a full refund if you have not claimed, stated in its Funeral Insurance and Quick Life wordings.

nib's adviser-plans page states a 14-day free look across the three health plans, with any premiums refunded if you decide the plan is not for you and have not claimed. That 14-day figure appears on nib's website and in none of the three health policy wordings.

What each one costs, and how premiums behave over time

Momentum Life and nib both withhold full pricing: neither publishes a price list. Momentum Life's funeral cover is priced for an entry age of 40 to 75 and a benefit amount between $3,000 and $30,000 that you choose, and every nib plan is individually underwritten and quote-based. What you can compare before you get a quote is how the premium behaves once you own the policy.

The FMA notes that most premiums go up annually based on your age or inflation. IFSO draws the standard distinction: a level premium stays the same, sometimes up to a certain age when there might be a large increase, while a stepped premium increases more gradually over time. The guide to stepped versus level premiums works through the trade-off.

Neither insurer offers a level premium on the products compared here. Momentum Life's funeral premiums are fixed rather than level-for-a-term, and no document in nib's Ultimate Life & Living suite mentions a level-premium option at all.

Policywise can quote nib alongside the other insurers on its panel, because the insurer pays the adviser. It cannot quote Momentum Life, which is not on the panel. Talk to a Policywise adviser if you want the nib plans priced for your age, health, and household.

Momentum Life premiums to the 89th birthday; nib premiums age-reviewed each year

Momentum Life's funeral premiums are fixed, do not increase with age, and stop altogether at the 89th birthday, with cover continuing for life. Every nib premium is age-reviewed instead, so it rises as the insured person gets older.

On the Momentum Life side the three products behave differently:

• Funeral Insurance: fixed premiums that do not rise with age, ending at the 89th birthday. Momentum Life can still change the rate across all policies issued under the same offer, on at least 30 days' written notice, effective from your next policy anniversary.
• Quick Life: premiums rise each year with age, then are fixed once the life insured turns 75.
• Platinum Life: premiums generally rose each year with age, with none payable after age 90.

On the nib side:

• Health plans. Premiums are individually underwritten and age-rated, and they also vary by gender, smoking or vaping status, and the excess you choose. nib must give at least 30 days' notice of changes it initiates.
• Life and living plans. Premiums are age-reviewed and adjusted at each policy anniversary, based on the insured person's current age and amount insured, plus occupation class, wait period, and benefit period on income protection and mortgage protection.

Indexation: whether the sum insured keeps pace with funeral costs

Momentum Life's funeral wording does not address indexation at all, so the sum insured you choose is the sum insured you keep. nib's health plans state that claim payments are not adjusted for inflation, which freezes the Funeral Support Benefit along with every other fixed sub-limit.

A full-text search of both live layouts of Momentum Life's funeral wording returns nothing for "index", "CPI", or "cost of living". The only stability the policy offers is on the premium side. Its other two products do index.

Quick Life increases the cover amount by 3% a year until the $500,000 cap or age 75, with an annual opt-out. Platinum Life increased by 3% on each anniversary, ending at the anniversary after the life insured turned 75.

nib splits the same way. On the three health plans, claim payments are not adjusted for inflation, so the $5,000 and $10,000 Funeral Support Benefits do not index. Any increase would come only from nib revising the policy wording.

On the life side there is a choice. Ultimate Life, Trauma, and TPD each offer three adjustment types. Inflation Adjustment runs at 1% to 10% a year, is CPI-guided, is set at nib's discretion, and carries an opt-out that converts to No Adjustment after three consecutive declines.

The other two are an Increasing Adjustment at a fixed 5% a year, and No Adjustment. Both income protection covers and Mortgage Protection offer only Inflation Adjustment or No Adjustment.

RECOMMENDED READINGS

Momentum Life vs AIA

Momentum Life vs Chubb

Momentum Life vs Partners Life

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