OneChoice vs AIA: Compare life, funeral, income, and other cover

OneChoice vs AIA: which is a better fit for you?

OneChoice fits you if you cannot pass underwriting and want funeral cover that cannot be declined. AIA fits you if you can pass underwriting and want breadth, higher sums insured, or cover that pays on conditions other than death.

Neither model is better in the abstract. Each trades something real for something else.

• Choose for ease of entry and OneChoice wins on one product. Its funeral cover is guaranteed acceptance for New Zealand residents aged 18 to 79, with no blood tests or medicals.
• Choose for breadth and AIA wins. OneChoice sells none of health insurance, accidental injury cover, specialist and diagnostic cover, redundancy cover, a premium waiver, or business, rural, and workplace cover, all of which AIA does, detailed below.
• Choose for advice and the gap is structural. OneChoice's staff cannot advise on other providers' products and will not compare its cover with anything else in the market.

There is a real cost to the easier route, and it is not the premium. Answering fewer questions up front does not reduce your duty of disclosure. You must tell an insurer anything that could affect its decision to insure you, and the current law does not distinguish between innocent and deliberate non-disclosure.

Where a policy is avoided for non-disclosure, the insurer can cancel it back to inception and treat it as though it never existed.

OneChoice and AIA side by side

OneChoice is the narrower provider and AIA is the broader one. OneChoice sells three product lines and publishes fixed bands for ages and cover amounts. AIA sells across the whole personal-insurance market and prices each application individually.

OneChoice vs AIA cost

Neither provider publishes a price list, because both price each policy individually. OneChoice quotes over the phone after health and lifestyle questions. AIA quotes through an adviser after underwriting, or online for its simpler products.

Policywise is an independent insurance broker and OneChoice is not on its panel, so it has no access to OneChoice's rates. You can request that figure from OneChoice direct.

Two published AIA discounts can lower what you pay, each on the products that qualify for it:

• Multi-Benefit Discount, up to 15%. It is 10% for the Life benefit plus one of trauma, TPD, or income protection, 12.5% for Life plus two, and 15% for all four. Qualifying minimums are Life $100,000, trauma $75,000, TPD $75,000, and income protection $2,000 a month. AIA Cover for Life counts towards eligibility but does not itself receive the discount, and AIA Essentials Life Cover neither counts nor receives it.
• AIA Vitality, an initial 10%. Joining the wellbeing programme gives a 10% premium discount on eligible policies, which then adjusts each year by your status tier. AIA Essentials Life Cover is not eligible for it.

Reaching the full 15% needs all four benefit groups, so what you would actually get depends on the shape of your cover. The discount applies to the premium of the benefits you hold, and excludes the policy fee.

Talk to a Policywise adviser for a personalised AIA quote and a review of which discounts and premium structures would lower your premium.

AIA also publishes two levers that are not discounts but change what you pay over time, and neither applies across the whole range. Its Premium Conversion Facility is confirmed on its TPD benefit. It lets you move from a rate-for-age structure, where the premium rises each year as you get older, to a level one without further medical evidence before age 65.

Its Suspension of Cover Benefit is worded near-identically across Life Cover and Family Protection. It lets you pause a rate-for-age policy for up to 12 months on parental leave, redundancy, or a pay cut of 20% or more.

On the OneChoice side, funeral premiums are level and do not rise each year, provided you make no changes to the policy. A level premium stays the same, sometimes until an age at which there may be a large increase, while a stepped premium rises more gradually.

OneChoice publishes no multi-policy or bundling discount anywhere on its site. It advertises lower starting premiums for non-smokers on its life range without publishing a percentage, and that discount does not extend to funeral cover.

How you buy: direct, or through an adviser

OneChoice sells direct only, through its distributor's own staff, with no independent-adviser channel. AIA sells both ways: through advisers for its fully underwritten products, and online for AIA Essentials Life Cover and its Starter Plans. That decides what you are told before you buy, not only how you buy.

OneChoice's own disclosure sets three limits on its staff. They cannot advise on other providers' products. They will not compare OneChoice's cover with anything else in the market. They will not consider whether you need insurance at all, or whether the premiums are affordable for you.

An adviser giving regulated financial advice carries statutory duties instead. Where there is a conflict of interest they must give priority to your interests, and they must at all times exercise care, diligence, and skill. Those duties sit in sections 431I to 431P of the Financial Markets Conduct Act 2013.

Both models are paid by the insurer rather than by you, and both figures belong here. Pinnacle Life pays the OneChoice distributor a commission of up to 76.63% of each premium, level throughout the life of the policy. AIA publishes no percentage or range for adviser commission, saying only that your adviser will tell you the figure during the advice process.

Policywise does publish its own range: 10% to 230% of the first year's premium upfront, and 5% to 25% ongoing, paid by the insurer, not by you. Sorted makes the general point plainly, that indirect payment creates a conflict of interest which an adviser must disclose up front.

How OneChoice and AIA compare as companies

AIA is the older and much larger insurer, and it publishes far more about itself. AIA New Zealand was incorporated in 1987 and holds $1,059.5 million of solvency capital. Pinnacle Life, which issues OneChoice's cover, was incorporated in 2012 and holds $78.3 million.

*The two ratings are not on one scale. Fitch and A.M. Best publish different ladders, so a letter from one cannot be set against a letter from the other. On Fitch's scale, as AIA reproduces it, AA means a very strong capacity to meet policyholder obligations. On A.M. Best's scale, B+ means Good.

**The higher solvency ratio, the capital an insurer holds divided by what the regulator requires it to hold, is not the stronger insurer. Pinnacle Life's 112.6% sits above AIA's 109%, but AIA's solvency margin alone, at $90.4 million, is larger than Pinnacle Life's entire solvency capital. Both clear the regulatory minimum. Neither company names the solvency standard it used.

***The claims percentages are not comparable either. AIA's 91% is an acceptance rate for one stated year. Pinnacle Life's 99.3% pools every policy type since 1998, and its 94.4% is a third figure on a third basis.

The asymmetry in what each insurer publishes is itself part of the comparison. AIA publishes dated solvency tables, a rating, annual claims figures, and a line-by-line claims split. The OneChoice side publishes less, and OneChoice itself publishes no claims statistic at all. That is a difference in disclosure practice, not proof of anything about how either insurer pays claims.

Key facts about OneChoice: who holds the licence and who underwrites the cover

OneChoice is a brand, not an insurer. OneChoice is a trading name of Greenstone Financial Services NZ Limited, which distributes and promotes the cover. The policies themselves are issued by Pinnacle Life Limited, which is reinsured by Hannover Life Re of Australasia Ltd.

That chain shows which company carries the risk on your policy and which company sold it to you. Three entities are involved:

• Greenstone Financial Services NZ Limited is the distributor, company number 7015673, incorporated 11 September 2018. It trades as both One Choice and New Zealand Seniors Insurance Agency, and holds its own registration on the Financial Service Providers Register, FSP646129.
• Pinnacle Life Limited is the insurer, company number 4187258, incorporated 20 December 2012. Separately, Pinnacle Life has been trading in New Zealand since 1998, under its own name, before the OneChoice brand launched in 2019. It holds an RBNZ insurer licence effective 29 April 2013 and an active FMA Financial Institutions licence, FSP273205, granted 31 March 2025.
• Hannover Life Re of Australasia Ltd, part of the Hannover Re group, is the reinsurer. AIA does not publish who reinsures its own book, so this is a fact about one side only.

Pinnacle Life publishes its financial position in reasonable detail. At 30 June 2026 its actual solvency capital was $78.310 million, against an adjusted prescribed capital requirement of $69.530 million. That gives an adjusted solvency margin of $8.780 million and an adjusted solvency ratio of 112.6%.

Its claims disclosure is less settled. One Pinnacle Life page reports 94.4% of claims made as at 25 May 2026 with no stated method. Another reports 99.3% of all claims since 1998, pooling every policy type, and does explain that method. OneChoice's own claims page carries no statistics of any kind.

On regulatory record, no FMA, Reserve Bank, or Commerce Commission action was found against Pinnacle Life, Greenstone Financial Services NZ, or OneChoice. No court or tribunal decision naming any of the three was found either, though New Zealand's main court-record search tools could not be reached to confirm that absence directly. That is the result of a search, not a certification.

Key facts about AIA New Zealand

AIA New Zealand Limited is the former Sovereign Assurance Company. It was incorporated on 8 September 1987 and renamed Sovereign Assurance Company Limited in 1988. AIA Group completed its acquisition of Sovereign on 2 July 2018, and the register records the rename to AIA New Zealand Limited on 2 August 2019.

Two AIA entities matter and they are easy to confuse. AIA New Zealand Limited is the insurer. It holds the RBNZ insurer licence, effective 16 August 2013, and an active FMA Financial Institutions licence, FSP39602, granted 31 March 2025. The financial advice provider licence sits with a different company, AIA Services New Zealand Limited, which is what AIA's own advice arms operate under

AIA's financial disclosure is detailed and dated:

• Rating. Fitch rates AIA New Zealand AA (Very Strong), which on Fitch's own scale means a very strong capacity to meet policyholder and contractual obligations. AIA publishes no outlook and no effective date alongside it.
• Solvency at 30 June 2026. Total AIA New Zealand solvency capital was $1,059.5 million, against an adjusted prescribed capital requirement of $969.1 million. That gives an adjusted solvency margin of $90.4 million and an adjusted solvency ratio of 109%. Its statutory fund figures were $784.5 million, $707.9 million, $76.6 million, and 111%.
• Claims. AIA paid $790 million in total claims for the year ended 31 December 2025, supporting more than 789,000 New Zealanders, and accepted 91% of all claims received. The split was $257.73 million life, $177.31 million health, $142.45 million trauma, $108.69 million income protection, and $21.35 million TPD. An older figure of $829.6 million for 2024 still appears elsewhere on AIA's site, so check the year attached to any AIA claims number you see.

AIA's regulatory record carries one entry and it belongs here. In September 2022 the Auckland High Court ordered AIA to pay a $700,000 pecuniary penalty.

The conduct was false or misleading representations, breaching the fair-dealing provisions of the Financial Markets Conduct Act 2013. It affected 383 customers, who were overcharged or had claims underpaid by more than $413,000. AIA self-reported the conduct to the FMA while responding to the 2018 joint FMA and Reserve Bank review of life insurers.

It cooperated with the investigation and remediated the customers affected. No later enforcement action against AIA was found in this search, a result rather than a certification.

For context, that 2018 review became a 2019 thematic report covering 16 New Zealand life insurers, and the regulators deliberately declined to name or attribute findings to any individual firm.

Policywise's review of AIA life insurance goes further into the products than this article does.

OneChoice vs AIA: how their life, trauma, and disability cover compare

OneChoice sells one life policy, with serious illness and TPD available only as add-ons to it. AIA sells six current life products, three trauma products, and TPD cover, and its trauma and TPD cover can be bought on their own.

*OneChoice describes its Serious Illness and TPD cover everywhere as an optional extra added to a OneChoice Life Insurance policy. It is never presented as something you can buy on its own.

AIA's Severe Trauma wording states in terms that the benefit may be standalone or accelerated, and its TPD wording says the same. Each also carries a facility to convert standalone cover to accelerated cover, with an equal amount of life cover, without further medical evidence.

When AIA pays an accelerated Severe Trauma or TPD benefit, your life cover reduces by the same amount. Bereavement Support works the same way. So under an accelerated structure your trauma money, your TPD money, and your funeral money can all be the same money. Standalone cover is what avoids that, and it is an option only on the AIA side.

Life cover: how much you can get, and who can apply

OneChoice offers $100,000 to $2,000,000 of life cover for New Zealand residents aged 16 to 70, with the maximum tapering by age band. AIA Living Life Cover and AIA Cover for Life publish no maximum at all, describing the cover amount as unlimited and subject to underwriting.

OneChoice's age bands set the ceiling, and they fall steeply:

• Ages 18 to 44: $2,000,000
• Ages 45 to 49: $1,500,000
• Ages 50 to 54: $1,000,000
• Ages 55 to 59: $750,000
• Ages 60 to 70: $500,000

OneChoice's published bands begin at 18; its FAQ gives no maximum for applicants aged 16 or 17, leaving a gap in the published ceiling rather than an unlimited allowance at those ages.

All of it is underwritten by phone questions about health and lifestyle, with no medical exam or blood test, up to the maximum benefit. Death by any cause is covered from day one in most cases, with exclusions depending on your circumstances.

Terminal illness pays the benefit in full on diagnosis. OneChoice does not publish the age at which its life cover expires, saying only that the benefit will expire once you reach a certain age.

AIA's six life products differ from one another, so the right comparison depends on which you are quoted:

• AIA Living Life Cover is the adviser-arranged flagship. Entry ages are 10 to 70, the cover amount is unlimited, and there is no expiry.
• AIA Cover for Life gives lifelong cover with level, guaranteed premiums for a term ending at 65, 70, or 80, after which premiums stop and cover continues. Entry is 16 to 70, with individual consideration after 70. It has no terminal illness benefit, so death is the only trigger.
• AIA Essentials Life Cover is bought online in around 10 minutes. Cover runs $50,000 to $1,000,000 for ages 16 to 60, and $50,000 to $500,000 for ages 61 to 70. It increases with CPI each year unless you elect to keep it level.
• AIA Starter Life is online cover for people aged 20 to 55 who are new to AIA, from $100,000 to $300,000, on stepped premiums.
• AIA Living Family Protection pays a monthly benefit rather than a lump sum, for a term of 5 to 30 years or to a nominated age. Entry ages are 10 to 70.
• AIA Living Accidental Death Cover pays up to $500,000, but only if death results from an accidental injury within 90 days of it and before age 65. Entry ages are 16 to 60, and cover expires at 65.

Both sides let you increase cover without new underwriting when your life changes. OneChoice allows up to $250,000 per life event. AIA's Special Events Increase Facility allows the lower of 50% of the original benefit or $250,000 per event.

Total increases are capped at the lower of 100% or $750,000. The life assured must be 55 or under, and a six-month moratorium applies to the increase. Policywise's AIA life insurance review sets out the full AIA Living benefit table.

Trauma and serious illness cover: add-on or standalone

OneChoice covers four conditions as an add-on to life cover. AIA sells three separate trauma products covering 58, 70, and 38 named conditions, and any of them can be held on its own.

OneChoice Serious Illness covers heart attack, stroke, cancer, and coronary artery bypass surgery. Cover runs from $50,000 to $500,000, entry ages are 16 to 59, and you must hold OneChoice life cover to add it. OneChoice does not publish an expiry age or any stand-down period for Serious Illness cover, so those terms sit in its policy document rather than on its website.

AIA's three trauma products differ in depth rather than in kind:

• AIA Living Critical Conditions covers 58 named conditions, with full or partial payment.
• AIA Living Progressive Care covers 70 named conditions across cancer, heart and arteries, brain and nerves, loss of function, and other health events.
• AIA Living Severe Trauma covers 38 named conditions, aimed at the most serious outcomes.

The total across all AIA trauma benefits is capped at $2,000,000 across all AIA policies, and all trauma and TPD benefits combined at $5,000,000. AIA does not publish entry ages or minimum sums insured for its trauma products.

Two AIA terms affect condition counts. A 90-day stand-down applies to specific marked conditions across all three products, where the condition or its early signs appear within 90 days of AIA receiving your application.

Severe Trauma also carries a permanent pre-existing-condition exclusion, with no time limit. It is lifted only where AIA is satisfied you could not have known of the condition, or you declared it and AIA accepted it.

AIA's other products do not all work that way. Policywise's AIA trauma insurance review covers the condition lists in detail.

For scale, AIA paid more than $142 million in trauma claims in 2025, with cancer making up 53% of them.

TPD and disability cover: what each one offers

OneChoice and AIA both sell total and permanent disablement cover, and the difference is form and size. OneChoice TPD is an add-on to its life cover, from $50,000 to $1,000,000, for ages 16 to 59, running to age 65. AIA's TPD can be standalone or accelerated, with a maximum of $5,000,000 across all AIA policies.

If you are weighing TPD against either of the other cover types, Policywise's comparisons of trauma insurance vs TPD and income protection vs TPD go through the differences in full.

AIA publishes two disability definitions and you elect one:

• Any Occupation requires total and permanent incapacity, plus three consecutive months without working in any occupation. AIA must also consider you unlikely ever to work again in any occupation reasonably suited to your education, training, or experience, paying more than 25% of your prior 12 months' earnings. Specified physical losses are an alternative trigger, as is a total and irreversible inability to perform two or more activities of daily living.
• Own Occupation tests the same structure against the specific occupation or business you were in immediately before becoming incapacitated.

A three-month survival requirement applies after incapacity begins, which AIA may waive early once satisfied you are expected to survive beyond three months. A partial TPD claim is capped at the lesser of 100% of the original TPD benefit or $500,000.

OneChoice does not publish its TPD disability definition. Pinnacle Life, which issues OneChoice's cover, publishes a definitions document for its own TPD product. It gives three alternative triggers.

The first is an any-occupation test with a six-month continuous-absence qualifying period. The second is the physical loss of two limbs, both eyes, or one limb and one eye. The third is a loss-of-independent-existence test, based on dependence for at least two of five activities of daily living.

That document is Pinnacle Life's own, describing a Pinnacle Life product. Its $1,000,000 maximum and age-65 expiry match OneChoice's published figures, but it is not published as a OneChoice policy term.

OneChoice and AIA cover for lost income

OneChoice and AIA both pay a monthly benefit if illness or injury stops you working, and on their personal income cover, both reduce it by what ACC pays you.

OneChoice pays up to 75% of pre-tax income, capped at $15,000 a month. Meanwhile, AIA offers three options on a different basis each, plus a mortgage- or rent-based product.

Life cover and income protection often work together rather than instead of each other; Policywise's guide to life insurance and income protection sets out how the two combine.

The structural difference is choice of basis. OneChoice publishes one formula. AIA publishes three, and which one you hold changes what you are paid when your income at claim time differs from the figure on your schedule. Policywise's review of AIA income protection goes through the AIA options in full.

What each one pays, and for how long

OneChoice pays a single formula, the lesser of the insured amount or 75% of pre-tax income. AIA pays on one of three bases you choose, Agreed Value, Indemnity, or Loss of Earnings, each treating a changed income differently.

Benefit periods differ too: OneChoice pays for six months, one year, two years, or five years, while AIA's three options run for one, two, or five years, or to age 65, and 70 for selected occupations.

*The 2-week stand-down option on AIA Income Protection is confirmed only on AIA's own product page; the policy wordings themselves list 4, 8, 13, 26, 52, or 104 weeks.

AIA's three bases diverge when your circumstances have changed:

• Agreed Value pays the amount on your schedule each month regardless of what you were earning at claim time, less offsets.
• Indemnity pays the lower of the schedule amount or 75% of your pre-disability income, less offsets. So the benefit falls if you were earning less at claim time than when you applied.
• Loss of Earnings pays the greater of the schedule amount or 75% of pre-disability income, less offsets, but never more than the schedule amount.

AIA Mortgage, Income or Rent Cover works to a different measure again. It covers up to 115% of the mortgage repayments or rent on your home, or 45% of gross income. The cap is $20,000 a month across all AIA benefits of that type.

ACC is the reason none of these numbers is the whole picture. ACC covers accidental injury, not illness, and explicitly excludes general illness, gradual-onset conditions, and age-related conditions such as arthritis.

Where it does apply, weekly compensation replaces 80% of pre-injury earnings from day eight, capped at a gross maximum of $2,466.20 a week from 1 July 2026 for claims running more than 26 weeks. A high earner's ACC entitlement therefore replaces well under 80% of their actual income, and ACC pays nothing at all for illness.

Stand-down periods

OneChoice offers a 30 or 90-day stand-down period. AIA offers 4, 8, 13, 26, 52, or 104 weeks on its income options, and the same menu on Mortgage, Income or Rent Cover. On both sides ACC is deducted from the benefit rather than added to it, and claims are then assessed against an occupation-class test on AIA's side, which OneChoice publishes no equivalent for.

How ACC is deducted differs in ways that matter:

• OneChoice reduces the benefit by other offsets you receive, including paid sick leave, other insurance policies, ACC, and any other government agency payment.
• AIA Agreed Value and Indemnity offset your net ACC entitlement, and offset the full entitlement if you are entitled to ACC but have not applied for it.
• AIA Loss of Earnings offsets the gross entitlement rather than the net, which is an explicit difference from the other two.
• AIA Mortgage, Income or Rent Cover offsets net ACC and Work and Income entitlements, but never offsets the first $7,500 a month of the calculated benefit.

Neither provider tops up ACC on its personal cover, apart from the first $7,500 a month of an AIA Mortgage, Income or Rent Cover benefit, which is never offset. AIA's own page states plainly that the amount you are entitled to receive from ACC or Work and Income is deducted from your benefit payments.

A product that does pay on top of ACC is Business Continuity, which is business cover rather than personal cover. Policywise's guide to ACC vs income protection explains how the two interact.

How claims are assessed

On assessment, AIA publishes its test by occupation class and OneChoice does not publish one. Under AIA's definition, someone in classes 1 to 4 is totally disabled if they cannot perform at least one important duty of their pre-disability role.

An inability to work more than 10 hours a week in that role also qualifies. In either case they must be under medical care and not working elsewhere. Class 5 requires confinement to home or a medical institution, or an inability to perform two or more activities of daily living unassisted.

Two situations move you to occupation class 5, which is a materially harder test. They are unpaid leave of more than 12 months, and unemployment of three months or more immediately before becoming disabled.

OneChoice publishes its income-protection exclusion list in full. It covers an intentional self-inflicted act, attempted suicide, and normal pregnancy, childbirth, miscarriage or termination. It also covers war or war-like activity, riot or civil commotion, criminal activity or illegal acts, and any special terms agreed with you. Pre-existing conditions are excluded.

Tax treatment follows the basis of cover rather than the brand. Section CW 34 of the Income Tax Act 2007 sets two tests. A claim payment under a personal sickness or accident policy is exempt only if it is made because the person is incapacitated for work. It must also be paid by a friendly society, or not calculated according to loss of earnings. Otherwise it is assessable income.

ACC weekly compensation is itself taxable. That is why an agreed-value basis and a loss-of-earnings basis can be taxed differently. It is also why this is a question for your accountant or IRD rather than for an article.

OneChoice funeral plans vs AIA's bereavement support benefit

For funeral cover specifically, OneChoice is the only one of the two that sells a funeral policy, and it cannot decline you. AIA has no funeral product, and its funeral money is an advance on life cover you must be underwritten for. Which suits you turns on whether you can pass underwriting.

If AIA pays $25,000 of Bereavement Support on a $500,000 AIA Cover for Life policy, the remaining life cover is $475,000. OneChoice's funeral benefit is not taken off anything, because it is its own policy. Its life cover separately includes a $10,000 funeral advance to help with funeral or tangi costs.

One thing helps on both sides. Since 24 September 2025 named institutions, including insurers, may release up to $40,000 without a grant of administration. Both OneChoice's chosen benefit amount, before its accidental-death multiplier, and AIA's $25,000 Bereavement Support sit under that threshold, so in principle either can be paid out without waiting for probate. The regulation permits institutions to pay rather than requiring them to.

What OneChoice funeral insurance covers, and the most you can get

OneChoice Funeral Insurance pays a chosen benefit of $3,000 to $30,000 on death, with guaranteed acceptance for New Zealand residents aged 18 to 79 and no health questions. In the first 12 months it covers accidental serious injury and accidental death only. Natural-cause death is covered after that.

The $90,000 figure quoted on comparison sites is a multiplier, not a cover tier. If you suffer an accidental death or accidental serious injury, OneChoice triples your chosen benefit amount up to $90,000, and the accidental-serious-injury payout is available until age 75. The death benefit itself runs to age 100.

Four separate age clauses apply, and they interact:

• At 85, OneChoice adds 25% Bonus Cover to your policy at no extra cost.
• At 85, premiums stop being charged.
• After 85 you may end the policy at any time and take 75% of your benefit amount in cash. That payout excludes the Bonus Cover.
• At 100 cover ends and OneChoice pays 125% of your benefit amount.

So taking the voluntary cash-out forfeits the bonus you were given at the same age. Which of the two is better value depends on how long you expect to live after 85, which is not something anyone can tell you.

Two further terms shape the value of the cover. Premiums are level and do not increase each year, provided you make no changes to the policy. There is no CPI indexation or inflation adjustment of any kind, so the sum insured you choose today is the sum insured paid decades later. Because the sum insured never increases, it buys less if funeral costs rise over time.

OneChoice pays most funeral claims within one business day of receiving the required paperwork. There is no non-smoker discount on funeral cover, unlike its life range.

AIA plans with funeral or bereavement support benefits

AIA funeral insurance does not exist as a product. Funeral money reaches an AIA customer only through the Bereavement Support Benefit built into its life-type cover. That benefit is an early payment of the life cover rather than an addition to it.

Comparison sites sometimes list an 'AIA Funeral Cover' or 'AIA Living Funeral Cover' product. Neither name appears anywhere in AIA's own product list or its life-insurance overview. They are a renaming of the bereavement benefit inside AIA life cover.

The amounts differ by product, so the product you hold decides what is paid:

• AIA Living Life Cover pays the lower of the life cover or $15,000 (sole policy owner) or $25,000 (surviving owner).
• AIA Cover for Life and AIA Essentials Life Cover pay the lower of the life cover or a flat $25,000.
• AIA Starter Life pays a flat $15,000.
• AIA Living Family Protection carries a Bereavement Support Benefit of $15,000 (sole policy owner) or $25,000 (surviving owner), which AIA itself ties to immediate expenses such as funeral costs.
• AIA Living Accidental Death Cover carries no Bereavement Support Benefit at all.

On most of AIA's life-type products it is one payment per life assured, made on written notification of death, reducing the life cover by the amount paid. On AIA Living Family Protection it instead reduces the monthly benefit, treated as the first monthly payment.

A separate Repatriation Benefit helps bring someone home if they die overseas, and the figures vary by product. On AIA Living Life Cover it is the lower of the life cover or $15,000 (sole policy owner) or $20,000 (surviving owner).

Repatriation and Bereavement Support combined are capped at $15,000 for a sole owner. On AIA Cover for Life it is the lower of the life cover or $20,000, with a combined cap of $40,000 for a sole owner. On AIA Essentials it is up to $25,000.

Some AIA benefits pay in addition to the sum assured rather than out of it. The Parents Grieving Benefit pays $2,000 if a child of the life assured was under 10, or $15,000 if the child was 10 or over, and does not reduce the life cover. A Counselling Benefit of up to $2,500 is also additional on AIA Living Life Cover, Family Protection, and Accidental Death Cover.

A Financial and Legal Advice Benefit of up to $2,500 is additional on AIA Living Life Cover and Family Protection. Both are absent from AIA Cover for Life and AIA Essentials Life Cover, and Financial and Legal Advice is absent from Accidental Death Cover too.

Policywise's AIA life insurance review sets out the full benefit list.

What funeral insurance offers and where it falls short

Funeral insurance is a risk product, not a savings or investment plan. IFSO's published guidance makes three points about it. As people age, the total premiums paid can exceed the amount that would be paid out. Cover lapses the moment premiums stop. And many funeral policies pay out in the first 12 months only if the death is accidental..

That last point is the market pattern rather than one provider's quirk, and OneChoice applies that 12-month restriction. The premiums-exceed-payout risk is real and documented. In one IFSO case study, a $20,000 funeral policy taken out in 2010 had cumulative premiums exceeding the sum insured by 2020. The insurer offered to cancel it and refund every premium paid.

OneChoice's own terms cut both ways on that risk:

• In its favour: premiums stop at 85 and 25% Bonus Cover is added, which limits the long-tail exposure.
• Against it: there is no refund of accumulated premiums outside the 30-day cooling-off period, because funeral insurance is not a savings plan.
• Also against it: the voluntary exit after 85 pays only 75% of the benefit and forfeits the bonus.

It also helps to know what a funeral actually costs before choosing a sum insured. The Funeral Directors Association of New Zealand surveyed its members on what a funeral actually costs. A moderately sized attended funeral of around 50 people costs on average about $11,700 for a cremation and $14,300 for a burial.

FDANZ contrasts that with advertising suggesting funerals cost $30,000 or more. Its itemised ranges, indicative as at July 2025, run roughly $6,600 to $14,050 for a cremation and $6,600 to $22,000 for a burial.

Against those figures, OneChoice's $30,000 maximum is roughly double the average attended cremation. Buying the maximum is not automatically the right call, and the premium you save by insuring closer to the real cost is money you keep.

The Work and Income Funeral Grant covers very little of the gap. Its maximum is $2,697.43, around a fifth to a quarter of FDANZ's average cost. It is means-tested on your income and assets, and on the deceased's estate.

Policywise's guide to funeral insurance covers the alternatives in more detail.

Other cover AIA offers

Beyond life, trauma, disability, and income cover, AIA sells health insurance, accidental injury cover, specialist and diagnostic cover, redundancy cover, a premium waiver, and business, rural, and workplace cover, each detailed below. OneChoice sells none of these, and its product set is three lines.

Health insurance is the one with the most published detail among those gaps. Its current range runs to three plans. AIA Private Health is the broad medical cover. AIA Private Health Plus is an optional upgrade, adding extra imaging and testing, pregnancy and infertility cover, and a health-screening allowance.

AIA Cancer Care covers cancer only, including non-Pharmac but Medsafe-indicated chemotherapy and immunotherapy up to $500,000 a year.

None of them pays a cash death or funeral benefit. Policywise's AIA health insurance review covers the plans, the claims process, and pricing.

The rest of the range, with whether each carries funeral or bereavement money:

• Specified Accidental Injury Cover pays your chosen monthly benefit, to a maximum of $5,000 a month, multiplied by an injury-category factor from 1 to 12. Claims are capped at $60,000 per life assured per policy year, depending on the category. It is an add-on and cannot be held on its own. No death or funeral benefit.
• Specialist and Testing Support launched on 1 October 2025. It gives up to $10,000 a year for specialist consultations and up to $100,000 a year for diagnostic tests and procedures, plus a screening allowance every three years. No death or funeral benefit.
• Redundancy Benefit pays a monthly benefit for up to six months after a waiting period of at least four weeks. It requires a current AIA Living mortgage or income protection benefit and cannot be held on its own. No death or funeral benefit.
• Waiver of Premium Benefit waives premiums across the whole policy while the life assured is totally disabled beyond the waiting period. It is a waiver only and pays nothing.
• Business and rural cover packages the personal products for a key person. It adds Business Continuity, Start-Up Income Protection for businesses trading three years or less, and Rural Continuity for farm owners. AIA states that no ACC offset applies to Business Continuity, so it pays on top of ACC. Any bereavement money comes from whichever life product is packaged in.
• AIA Corporate Solutions is employer-arranged group cover: life insurance with optional TPD, income protection, and critical illness, plus AIA MyCare for virtual consultations and mental-health support. Whether the group life cover carries the same Bereavement Support and Repatriation benefits as individual AIA Living Life Cover is not published.

AIA Vitality sits alongside all of this and is not cover at all. It is a health and wellbeing rewards programme that changes what you pay rather than what you are covered for.

Pre-existing conditions, health questions and underwriting

OneChoice asks no health questions at all on funeral cover, and phone health questions on everything else. AIA individually underwrites its life, trauma, TPD, and income protection cover, with no guaranteed-acceptance option across any of them.

OneChoice's funeral cover is guaranteed acceptance regardless of health, while its income protection excludes pre-existing conditions outright. AIA frames it differently: a pre-existing condition may affect your application, but it does not automatically disqualify you.

Policywise's guide to life insurance and pre-existing conditions explains how this is assessed.

OneChoice: guaranteed acceptance and the 12-month stand-down

OneChoice's underwriting splits by product rather than applying across the brand. Its funeral cover is guaranteed acceptance for ages 18 to 79, with no health questions, and the 12-month accidental-only stand-down does that work instead. Its life, Serious Illness, TPD, and income protection cover all ask phone health questions.

No medicals or blood tests are needed on any OneChoice product, up to its published maximums. On the published terms, pre-existing conditions are excluded from its income protection cover. For its life and Serious Illness cover, OneChoice does not publish how pre-existing conditions are treated, deferring to its policy document.

AIA: what the application asks

AIA underwrites every application individually, and special conditions, exclusions, and premium loadings may apply. Its simpler online products, AIA Essentials and the Starter Plans, use simplified questions, and Essentials usually needs no medical tests. AIA Cover for Life's adviser-arranged application includes medical underwriting.

More questions up front does not mean fewer declined claims. Your duty of disclosure covers anything material to the insurer's decision regardless of what a specific question asks, and it continues whenever you extend, vary, or reinstate cover. What protects a later claim is completeness, not question count.

Where AIA finds non-disclosure, its umbrella wording reserves four remedies. It may avoid the whole policy from inception, avoid an individual benefit from inception, alter the terms of cover, or remove a life assured. It retains the premiums already paid in each case.

Pre-existing conditions are handled at underwriting rather than by a blanket clause on AIA Living Life Cover, TPD, and income protection cover, with any loading or exclusion recorded on your own schedule.

AIA Living Severe Trauma is the exception, carrying a permanent pre-existing exclusion; whether AIA Living Critical Conditions and Progressive Care carry a similar clause is not confirmed.

Immediate cover and stand-down periods

OneChoice and AIA both provide free cover while your application is assessed, and once cover starts, both also apply stand-down periods before certain benefits pay. AIA's interim cover is the broader of the two, but on the death benefit it is OneChoice's stand-down that runs longer.

OneChoice gives interim Accidental Death Cover for up to 30 days. AIA's Interim Cover runs up to 60 days, and its life cover benefit pays up to $500,000 for death by accident or illness, not accidental death alone.

AIA's other interim benefits are narrower than its life one:

• TPD pays $150,000, and only for disablement from injury caused by accidental, violent, external, and visible means.
• Income protection and mortgage-type benefits pay $2,000 a month for up to 24 months.
• The aggregate cap across all interim benefits for one claim event is $500,000.

Once cover starts, the stand-downs run the other way from what you might expect. OneChoice's funeral policy has a 12-month stand-down on natural-cause death, where AIA's life cover has no general stand-down on the death benefit, only a 13-month intentional-self-inflicted-act clause.

AIA's other benefits do carry stand-downs, so this is specific to the death benefit rather than a statement about AIA generally. Its trauma products apply a 90-day stand-down on marked conditions. Its TPD cover requires three months of incapacity plus a three-month survival period, and its income cover uses the waiting period you elect.

Both providers give you time to change your mind. OneChoice allows 30 days, with a full refund where no claim has been made, and AIA Cover for Life allows 15, inside a free-look period.

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