OneChoice vs Fidelity Life: Compare life, funeral, income, and other cover

OneChoice vs Fidelity Life: which is a better fit for you?

OneChoice fits you if you want funeral cover you cannot be declined for, or life, serious illness, TPD, or income cover you can apply for in one phone call. Fidelity Life fits you if you can pass underwriting and want breadth, standalone cover, or to involve your adviser at claim time.

• Ease of entry favours OneChoice on one product: guaranteed acceptance on its funeral plan at ages 18 to 79.
• Breadth favours Fidelity Life: a wider personal range of eight covers, plus business, rural, and workplace cover that OneChoice does not offer at all.
• Advice is a structural gap. OneChoice's staff advise only on its own products, while a Fidelity Life policy is arranged through an adviser.

Answering fewer questions does not reduce your duty of disclosure. Where material information is left out, an insurer's remedy in law is to cancel the policy from the start, and the law does not distinguish innocent from deliberate non-disclosure.

Fidelity Life's standalone TPD runs to the 100th birthday and life cover has no age-based end condition, while standalone trauma cover ends at 70. OneChoice's only late-life product is its funeral plan.

OneChoice and Fidelity Life side by side

OneChoice is the narrower company and Fidelity Life the broader one. OneChoice sells three product lines with published bands for ages and cover amounts, plus two add-ons to life cover. Fidelity Life sells eight personal covers and sets the figures at underwriting.

Two rows need a qualifier. The trauma row sets an add-on against a standalone product, so the finding is that OneChoice does not sell standalone trauma cover. And the B+ grade belongs to Pinnacle Life, which issues OneChoice's cover, not to the OneChoice brand.

OneChoice vs Fidelity Life cost

Neither company publishes a premium example, so a OneChoice vs Fidelity Life cost comparison starts with structure rather than a number.

Both price OneChoice's underwritten cover and Fidelity Life's range individually on age, sex, smoking status, and health, OneChoice's funeral plan excepted, since it asks no health questions. Both send you to a personalised quote.

The difference between life insurance premium increase with age matters here. A level premium stays the same, sometimes until an age where there may be a large increase. A stepped premium instead rises more gradually over time. The two companies sit on opposite sides of that line:

• OneChoice funeral premiums are level, with no annual increase while the policy is unchanged, and none payable after you turn 85.
• Stepped pricing. Pinnacle Life, which issues OneChoice's cover, prices its own policies stepped, rising each anniversary with age plus CPI. OneChoice publishes no premium structure for its own life, serious illness, TPD, or income cover.
• Fidelity Life's Platinum Plus range is age-stepped, while its Platinum Plus Level Term range holds the premium level for an agreed period.

Fidelity Life publishes three levers that lower a premium: a longer waiting period from seven options, an optional 24-month cap on mental and back disorder claims on its Agreed Value income protection cover, and a premium freeze.

OneChoice's own published lever is non-smoker pricing; Pinnacle Life, which issues OneChoice's cover, also lets its own policyholders choose a shorter waiting period or cover period to lower the premium.

Neither publishes what its non-smoker discount is worth, or any multi-policy discount. OneChoice is also the more generous on cooling off: 30 days with a full refund against Fidelity Life's 14-day free look.

How you buy: direct, or through an adviser

OneChoice sells direct only. It describes itself as a distributor and promoter of policies issued by Pinnacle Life, and engages its staff as nominated representatives who advise on OneChoice's own behalf. Fidelity Life has no direct-to-consumer purchase path, so every policy reaches you through an adviser.

In its own words, OneChoice's staff can advise only on whether its own products may suit you. They cannot advise on other providers' products or compare them with anything else in the market.

That is a compliant model, not a failing. The Financial Markets Authority distinguishes a financial adviser, who must register on the Financial Service Providers Register, from a nominated representative, who does not.

It also sets out what an adviser is there to do: understand your needs, work out what you can afford, find options, explain exclusions, and arrange cover. It must review your cover regularly, with your interests first where there is a conflict.

The adviser channel has its own documented conflicts. Upfront commissions can reach 200% of the first year's premium, and the FMA found nine insurers spent $34 million over two years on soft commissions.

Pinnacle Life pays the OneChoice distributor up to 76.63% of each premium, and does not say whether that affects your premium. That single-distributor figure is not directly comparable to the FMA's industry-wide commission figures above, or to Policywise's own panel-wide disclosure below; each measures a different thing.

Policywise discloses 10% to 230% upfront and 5% to 25% ongoing across its panel, and the insurer pays Policywise rather than you. What the adviser route buys beyond a quote is ongoing review and claims advocacy. If you are weighing the two channels, read how to find an insurance broker first.

How OneChoice and Fidelity Life compare as companies

OneChoice is a brand rather than an insurer, and Fidelity Life is the insurer itself. Both risk carriers hold Reserve Bank insurer licences. Both use the Insurance and Financial Services Ombudsman for disputes.

No regulatory finding against either company was located after checking the FMA and RBNZ enforcement registers and the Commerce Commission's case register. There is no public per-insurer complaint record in New Zealand, so the two cannot be ranked on complaints.

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

OneChoice is a trading name of Greenstone Financial Services NZ Limited, and the cover is issued by Pinnacle Life Limited. Both sit under the same Australian parent, Greenstone Holdco Pty Ltd.

Pinnacle Life has held a Reserve Bank insurer licence since 29 April 2013. If you buy through OneChoice, Pinnacle Life is the insurer that actually carries your risk, and it also sells its own branded range on different terms, so a Pinnacle Life figure is not a OneChoice figure.

• Reinsurance and brand age. Pinnacle Life is reinsured by Hannover Life Re of Australasia, whereas Fidelity Life publishes no reinsurer at all, and the OneChoice brand itself launched in 2019.
• Financial strength. A.M. Best rates Pinnacle Life B+ (Good) with a stable outlook as at 15 April 2026, a grade the agency defines as a good ability to meet ongoing senior financial obligations.
• Solvency. At 30 June 2026, Pinnacle Life reported an adjusted solvency ratio of 112.6%, on a margin of $8.780 million.
• Claims. Pinnacle Life reports 94.4% of claims on its policies paid as at 25 May 2026, with no denominator or method published, and OneChoice's own claims page publishes no figures.
• Who decides. Greenstone collects the claim information, and Pinnacle Life decides liability. Pinnacle Life aims to pay most claims within 7 to 10 days. Funeral claims are assessed and processed within 1 to 2 business days.

Key facts about Fidelity Life: who owns it and who underwrites the cover

Fidelity Life Assurance Company Limited underwrites its own policies rather than distributing another insurer's. It was founded in 1973, holds a Reserve Bank insurer licence effective 2 August 2013, and is a public unlisted company with roughly 25 shareholders.

Fidelity Life is New Zealand-owned today, with an acquisition pending.

• Today it is New Zealand-owned, and its homepage says so. The Guardians of New Zealand Superannuation hold 49.6%, Ngāi Tahu Holdings 24.9%, and the Fidelity Family Account 16.4%.
• Pending acquisition. That is set to change: on 3 September 2026, Partners Group Holdings Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of Japan's Dai-ichi Life Group, agreed to buy Fidelity Life for NZ$630 million, with closing targeted for March to July 2027. Until then, the businesses remain separate, and customers need to take no action.

If you're weighing financial strength, A.M. Best rates Pinnacle Life B+ (Good) and Fidelity Life A- (Excellent). Fidelity Life has held its A- rating since December 1996, reaffirmed on 23 March 2026 for a 30th consecutive year.

A.M. Best defines that grade as an excellent ability to meet ongoing senior financial obligations, and rates both companies on the same scale, so the grades can be read side by side.

At 30 June 2026, Fidelity Life reported an adjusted solvency ratio of 113% on a margin of $106.8 million, under the Reserve Bank's Interim Solvency Standard 2023. That standard applies to every licensed insurer, so the two ratios are comparable. The ratios are similar; the dollar cushions behind them are not.

For FY25, Fidelity Life reports $238 million paid in all claims and 93% of new claims accepted, across more than 300,000 people insured. The two companies' claims figures are not measuring the same thing.

Pinnacle Life's 94.4% is a brand-wide figure with no stated denominator or method, while Fidelity Life's 93% is a defined FY25 figure on new claims. Fidelity Life assigns a dedicated claims specialist but publishes no numeric turnaround.

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

OneChoice life insurance is a single product with two optional add-ons, serious illness cover and TPD cover, neither of which can be bought on its own. Fidelity Life sells eight personal covers, and its trauma and TPD cover can each be bought standalone or accelerated against life cover.

See critical illness insurance vs disability cover for how the two differ when you're choosing between them. Accelerated means the payment is an advance against your life cover, so it reduces the life sum insured. Standalone leaves the life cover intact.

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

OneChoice life insurance NZ runs from $100,000 to $2 million, tapering by age band from $2 million at ages 18 to 44 down to $500,000 at 60 to 70. Entry runs from 16 to 70. Fidelity Life publishes no cap at all, states entry at 16 to 75, and sets the amount at underwriting.

So OneChoice gives you a ceiling you can check against any quote, while Fidelity Life's equivalent is a sentence rather than a number, which reflects adviser-set underwriting rather than a published gap.

Terminal illness is handled differently:

• OneChoice pays 100% of the benefit on a terminal illness diagnosis, and publishes no prognosis threshold on its life pages.
• Fidelity Life advances the full sum insured on a 12-month prognosis, certified by your specialist and confirmed by a second it nominates. It also pays a built-in partial benefit, the lesser of 30% or $250,000, on seven named severe diagnoses.

For the rest of the details on riders, options, and claims history, read the Fidelity Life insurance review rather than repeating it here.

Trauma and serious illness cover: add-on or standalone

OneChoice serious illness cover, OneChoice's name for trauma insurance, is an add-on to life cover only, covers exactly four conditions, and runs from $50,000 to $500,000 at entry ages 16 to 59. Fidelity Life's Platinum Plus Trauma cover is standalone or accelerated, and pays on 47 full-benefit and 20 partial-benefit conditions.

That comparison sets a rider against a standalone product: OneChoice does not sell standalone trauma cover at all. The condition definitions, not the count, decide whether a comparison is fair.

OneChoice publishes no definitions at all, so the table below uses Pinnacle Life's own-branded critical conditions wording as the closest proxy. It is not confirmed to be identical to OneChoice's.

*Fidelity Life's trauma cover carries a 3-month stand-down on a named subset of conditions, and a condition present, diagnosed, or symptomatic in that window is never payable under that cover. That is harsher than a waiting period, which only delays cover.

The full list sits in the Fidelity Life trauma cover review. For how income protection and trauma cover interact, see trauma insurance vs income protection.

Disability cover: what each one offers

OneChoice TPD cover is an add-on to life cover only, runs from $50,000 to $1 million, and ends at 65. Fidelity Life sells TPD standalone, expiring on the 100th birthday, or accelerated against life cover. It offers own occupation, any occupation, or home duties (a test for someone not in paid work) definitions before 65.

The definition is the part that decides a claim. An own-occupation test asks whether you can return to your own job, which is what protects a skilled trade. OneChoice's site never uses the words own occupation or any occupation, describing the cover only as being unable to work or unable to look after yourself. The Pinnacle Life proxy wording tests any occupation only, which is suggestive but not conclusive about OneChoice's own definition.

Fidelity Life's TPD cover adds a partial benefit OneChoice does not publish: 25% of the sum insured up to $75,000 for loss of use of one hand, foot, or eye. It also carries no stand-down period because the 3-month absence is definitional.

For how TPD and income protection work together, see income protection vs TPD.

OneChoice and Fidelity Life cover for lost income

Both companies sell monthly cover for lost income. OneChoice pays up to 75% of your monthly pre-tax income, capped at $15,000 a month. Fidelity Life pays up to $30,000 a month. It sells two bases: agreed value (the benefit is fixed when you buy the policy) and indemnity value (the benefit is set against your income at claim time).

This cover exists because ACC does not stretch that far. ACC covers injury from an accident, not illness, and excludes sickness, contagious disease, and standalone stress. Where it does apply, it pays up to 80% of pre-injury weekly earnings from day 8, capped at $2,466.20 gross a week from 1 July 2026.

Above that income level, 80% in principle is well under 80% in practice. ACC publishes no maximum duration, unlike both insurers' fixed benefit periods. The full comparison is in ACC vs income protection.

Offsets matter on both sides. OneChoice reduces the benefit by paid sick leave, other insurance, ACC, or any other government payment, so it is an offset rather than an ACC top-up. Fidelity Life's indemnity cover caps total receipts at 75% of pre-disability income.

Product detail sits in its Fidelity Life income protection cover review.

What each one pays, and for how long

OneChoice offers two waiting periods and four benefit periods, with cover ending on the anniversary after your 65th birthday. Fidelity Life offers seven waiting periods and four benefit periods, two of which run to 65 or 70, and sells on both an agreed-value and an indemnity basis.

Three things it cannot hold:

• The to-70 taper. Fidelity Life's to-age-70 benefit period steps down past 65, from 80% of the monthly benefit at 65 to 10% at 69.
• Part-time work. OneChoice says you cannot take part in your own or any other gainful occupation while being paid, so easing back part-time ends the claim. Fidelity Life lets you pick between two partial-disability formulas.
• Tax. Fidelity Life states agreed-value benefits are generally not income-tax-assessable, with premiums not deductible, while indemnity benefits are taxable and premiums deductible. Treatment depends on your circumstances, so it's worth checking with Inland Revenue.

Stand-down periods and how a claim is assessed

On income protection, a stand-down period, the New Zealand term for a waiting period, is the time you must be disabled before payments start. OneChoice offers 30 or 90 days. Fidelity Life offers seven options from 2 to 104 weeks, and the waiting period does the job an excess does on other cover.

How a claim runs afterwards differs in three ways:

• Recurrence. OneChoice waives a fresh waiting period if the same sickness or injury returns within 6 months of your last payment. Fidelity Life has a recurring claim benefit and a benefit period reset.
• Proof. OneChoice asks for monthly updates on your condition and working status. Fidelity Life also sets monthly requirements on an in-payment claim, so this is not a OneChoice-only burden.
• Mental health. OneChoice publishes no duration cap once a claim is accepted, applying only a pre-existing test. Fidelity Life offers an optional 24-month cap in exchange for a lower premium, by your choice rather than default.

See insurance for mental health for how coverage for mental health conditions works more broadly.

OneChoice funeral plans vs Fidelity Life's bereavement benefit

OneChoice sells a standalone funeral plan; Fidelity Life's own range does not include one. Fidelity Life's funeral money comes from inside life cover instead, as a $25,000 bereavement advance plus a child's funeral benefit.

If you would be declined or heavily loaded elsewhere, OneChoice's guaranteed acceptance is the answer for funeral cover, because comparison does not help with cover you cannot get. If you can be underwritten, OneChoice's funeral benefit caps at $30,000, while Fidelity Life's life cover with an advance carries no such cap.

Funeral cover has limits, the Ombudsman states plainly. It is a risk product rather than a savings plan; the premiums paid can exceed the cover amount over a long life, and cover lapses if premiums stop. Many funeral policies also pay out in the first 12 months only on accidental death, which is market-wide rather than one insurer's quirk.

For context, the Funeral Directors Association of New Zealand reports a moderate funeral of around 50 people costs about $11,700 for a cremation and $14,300 for a burial. The state backstop is thin: Work and Income's means-tested Funeral Grant pays a maximum of $2,697.43, and ACC up to $8,236.40 after an accident.

For the alternatives, start with funeral insurance in New Zealand.

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

OneChoice funeral insurance NZ pays a benefit of $3,000 to $30,000, with guaranteed acceptance for any New Zealand resident aged 18 to 79, and no blood tests or medicals to apply. The risk sits in the stand-down rather than in underwriting, because there are no health questions at all.

The mechanics that follow matter:

• A 12-month stand-down. In the first 12 months, only accidental serious injury and accidental death are covered. Natural-cause death and terminal illness become payable after that.
• Late-life features with no Fidelity Life counterpart. A 25% bonus cover is added at 85 at no cost; you can end the policy after 85 for 75% of the benefit, and at 100 cover ends with 125% paid out.
• No CPI indexation on the benefit. Over a 20-year hold, a fixed $30,000 buys materially less, which is the counterweight to level premiums.
• Not a savings plan. Outside the 30-day cooling-off period, premiums are not refunded.

Fidelity Life's bereavement and child's funeral benefits

Fidelity Life pays two funeral-related benefits from inside life cover. A bereavement benefit of $25,000, or the full life sum insured if that is less, is paid as an immediate advance on death, alongside a child's funeral benefit. The bereavement advance is deducted from the life cover sum insured and paid while you apply for the paperwork needed for the full claim.

There is no standalone Fidelity Life funeral plan behind it. Its own personal insurance range lists eight covers, none of them a funeral product, and its own sitemap carries no funeral page anywhere across personal, business, rural, and group insurance. Funeral-related cover is therefore the bereavement advance plus a child's funeral benefit, both built into life cover.

• Repatriation benefit. The lesser of actual direct costs, 10% of the life sum insured, or $20,000, paid on top rather than deducted.
• Child's funeral benefit. $15,000 on the death of a child aged 10 to 20, or $2,000 for a child aged 2 to 9, and not deducted from your own sum insured. A child's death under age 2 is not covered.
• Grief counselling. Up to $2,500 reimbursed once a lump sum benefit is paid.

Both advances do the same job and come off the final payment. The differences are the amount, and that OneChoice also sells the cover on its own.

Other cover Fidelity Life offers

Fidelity Life's range runs past the four lines compared above, and none of the following has a OneChoice counterpart. Its site lists specific injury cover, survivor's income cover, monthly mortgage repayment cover, business expenses cover, key person cover, rural key person cover, group cover, retirement protection cover, terminal illness booster cover, waiver of premium cover, a child's future insurability option, and Cancer Companion.

• Specific injury cover pays a lump sum for one of 30 defined injuries, at 2 to 12 times a sum insured of $500 to $5,000, with no waiting periods and no offsets.
• Survivor's income cover pays a monthly benefit for a selected term on death, and monthly mortgage repayment cover is income protection built around the mortgage payment.
• Business expenses cover, key person insurance, and rural key person cover serve a self-employed tradesperson, business owner, or farmer, a reader OneChoice does not address at all.
• Group insurance covers employer-arranged life, TPD, trauma, and income protection schemes, from a minimum of 10 lives.
• Retirement protection cover pays Inland Revenue directly to keep your KiwiSaver contributions running while you are disabled, rather than paying you.
• Cancer Companion is a support service rather than a cash benefit, offering health coaching, a second medical opinion, and three virtual therapy sessions at no extra cost, though it isn't available on Group cover or Key Person cover.

Terminal illness booster cover, waiver of premium cover, and a child's future insurability option round out the range.

Pre-existing conditions, health questions and underwriting

Underwriting is the real difference between these two companies, and it is not a contrast between questions and no questions. Only OneChoice's funeral cover is free of health questions. Every other product on both sides asks them, and Fidelity Life asks more.

Having pre-existing conditions does not mean you cannot get cover at all, or that those conditions will be automatically excluded from your policy. The detail is in the guide to life insurance and pre-existing conditions.

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

Guaranteed acceptance with no health questions applies to OneChoice funeral insurance only. Its life, serious illness, TPD, and income cover are underwritten by health and lifestyle questions over the phone, with no medical exam and no blood test up to the published maximums.

Those phone questions are real for life insurance. OneChoice says it will ask your name, residency, age, gender, employment status, whether you smoke, and other health and lifestyle questions, including current or past illnesses and the treatments you have had. Your duty of disclosure survives the absence of a medical, and OneChoice says so itself.

On income protection, where the answers aren't standard, OneChoice records special terms or conditions on your policy schedule, which is how a loaded or restricted application is handled rather than refused outright. More generally, its editorial pages describe a higher premium or an exclusion as possible underwriting outcomes.

On income protection, pre-existing conditions are excluded per condition. OneChoice's worked example is mental health: diagnosed before the policy started, it is not covered; diagnosed after commencement, it is.

Fidelity Life: what the application asks

Fidelity Life underwrites every policy individually through an adviser, in six published steps, across four risk categories: medical, financial, occupational, and hazardous pastime. Financial underwriting sets the maximum cover it will offer, and OneChoice publishes no income-based equivalent, only the flat product bands above. The adviser-facing detail is specific:

• Occupation classes 1 to 5, running from professional white-collar work to homemakers, students, and the unemployed.
• Medical evidence codes A to D+, where Code A is a GP or paramedical medical plus blood tests, and Code D+ adds a PSA test or a mammogram from age 45.
• Financial evidence required above $2.5 million of life or TPD cover, and above $1.5 million of trauma cover.
• Tele-underwriting. This is Fidelity Life's preferred method, so both companies use the phone. The difference is depth and who asks.

Outcomes are described as a premium adjustment, an exclusion, or a deferral, where a deferral means it may not offer cover at that point in time. Two things soften that: it will give a non-binding pre-assessment before you apply, and a loading is reviewable if the risk reduces.

No Fidelity Life cover wording carries its own pre-existing-condition clause. One shared definition applies across the range, and your own exclusions or loadings appear only on your policy schedule, which is why no article can tell you what is excluded for you.

Immediate cover and stand-down periods

Both companies give you free interim cover while an application is assessed, and both set stand-down periods once the policy itself starts, with neither simply better on either count.

OneChoice provides up to $500,000 of accidental death cover for up to 30 days. Fidelity Life's free temporary cover runs 60 days, covering $500,000 for death and $250,000 for trauma conditions, to a combined $500,000.

The trade-off runs both ways. Fidelity Life's window is twice as long and covers trauma as well as death. OneChoice does not publish an age limit or a prior-application restriction, while Fidelity Life's excludes anyone under 10 or over 65, or with a declined, deferred, or non-standard application history.

Stand-downs once cover starts are not uniform on either side:

• OneChoice applies a 12-month accidental-death-only stand-down on funeral cover, usually excludes suicide for the first 13 months on life cover, and uses the 30- or 90-day waiting period on income protection.
• Fidelity Life has no general death stand-down on life cover and none at all on TPD, but its trauma cover carries the 3-month stand-down described above.
• Suicide is a 13-month stand-down on Fidelity Life's life cover, but an exclusion with no time limit on its trauma and TPD cover.

When you compare two offers, check the stand-down that applies to your condition, not just the headline premium. A Policywise adviser can check the wording for you.

RECOMMENDED READINGS

OneChoice vs AIA

OneChoice vs Partners Life

OneChoice vs Asteron Life

Compare life, funeral, and other cover options with Policywise

Policywise is a 100% free service which tells you which health, life, and disability insurance provider best fits your needs. We offer fast, comprehensive, and easy-to-understand comparisons of all leading providers and a simple summary clearly recommending which insurer is best for your situation.

Not all insurance policies are the same. Policywise can help you sort out the duds, avoid the lemons, understand the fine print and exclusions, and get the right insurance for you and your family.

We make the important decision of where to buy your insurance super easy. We’ll answer your questions, provide experienced advice and quotes, and manage all the back and forth throughout the application process. Taking out your cover through us means you'll have our lifetime support and claims advocacy, and we'll help you negotiate a positive outcome at claim time. We can also take care of lodging any claims on your behalf and back you up if the going gets tough.

Check out the reviews on our homepage for how other New Zealanders have found our service, because now is the time to get your health insurance sorted. Give your family or someone you love the most outstanding financial support possible. Book a 5-minute callback with Policywise today; our service is fast and free.