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

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

OneChoice fits you if you want funeral cover accepted without health questions, or a small policy bought in one phone call. Partners Life fits you if you want wide trauma and disability cover, high sums insured, or health insurance, and you are willing to answer detailed questions.

Neither model is better in the abstract. They trade different things against each other.

• Choose for ease of entry, and OneChoice wins. There are no medicals or blood tests for its life cover up to a $2 million maximum, and its funeral policy is guaranteed acceptance for New Zealand residents aged 18 to 79.
• Choose for breadth and Partners Life wins. It sells trauma, TPD, income, mortgage, injury, and private medical cover, and OneChoice sells none of the last three.
• 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. Answering fewer questions up front does not remove the duty of disclosure, and underwriting is where that duty is tested. IFSO reports that about 10% of complaints to its scheme involve non-disclosure, often where someone forgot a detail or did not realise it mattered.

Where a policy is avoided for non-disclosure, the insurer can treat it as though it never existed, which can also leave you unable to replace the cover. In one IFSO case study, a consumer had income protection, mortgage protection, and health insurance all avoided after a claim, because conditions she considered old news were not disclosed.

OneChoice and Partners Life side by side

OneChoice is the narrower, simpler provider and Partners Life is the broader, more conditional one. OneChoice publishes fixed bands for entry ages and cover amounts. Partners Life's current PL Journey Plan sets both per application in the Policy Schedule and publishes neither, which is a difference in underwriting model rather than a gap.

OneChoice vs Partners Life cost

Neither provider publishes a price list, because both price individually. OneChoice quotes over the phone after health and lifestyle questions, and Partners Life quotes through an adviser after full underwriting. These are real Partners Life figures, current to its PL Journey Plan generation, so you have something concrete to compare your own OneChoice quote against.

Policywise is an independent adviser, and OneChoice is not on its panel, so it has no access to its rates. You can request that figure from OneChoice directly and compare it against the Partners Life figures above.

Two published Partners Life discounts can lower what you pay, and they stack:

• Multi-benefit discount, up to 15%. It is 10% for Life plus one other benefit group, 12.5% for Life plus two, and 15% for all four. Qualifying minimums are Life $100,000, Trauma $75,000, TPD $100,000, and Monthly Disability $2,000 a month.
• Life Advantage discount, a permanent 10% on eligible Life and Trauma premiums, for a non-smoker aged 16 or over with a BMI between 18.50 and 26.99, on a new or increased fully underwritten application.

Reaching the full 15% needs all four benefit groups, so the amount you would get depends on the shape of your cover. Talk to a Policywise adviser for a personalised Partners Life quote and a review of which discounts and premium structures would lower your premium.

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

How you buy: direct, or through an adviser

OneChoice sells direct, through its distributor's own staff, with no independent advisers in the channel. Partners Life sells only through advisers and has no direct channel at all. That decides what you are told before you buy, not just how you buy.

OneChoice's own disclosure sets out the limits on its staff. They cannot give advice about other providers' products, and 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.

Pinnacle Life pays the distributor a commission of up to 76.63% of each premium, on a level basis for the life of the policy.

An adviser giving regulated financial advice has statutory duties instead. Policywise's guide on how to find an insurance broker explains what to look for. They must give priority to your interests, exercise care, diligence, and skill, and comply with the Code of Professional Conduct

The caveat belongs here too. The FMA notes that a commission-paid adviser costs you nothing upfront, but may offer a limited choice from only one provider. Sorted makes the same point: an adviser paid by a company to sell has a conflict of interest, and must tell you how they are paid.

That is why Policywise publishes its panel and its remuneration. Policywise's own view is that the test to apply is how many providers an adviser can place you with.

How OneChoice and Partners Life compare as companies

Partners Life is the larger and more highly rated company, and OneChoice is a brand rather than a company. OneChoice cover is issued by Pinnacle Life Limited and distributed by Greenstone Financial Services NZ Limited. Any review of OneChoice's financial strength is therefore a review of Pinnacle Life.

A solvency ratio measures capital against the regulator's requirement, not size. Pinnacle Life's 112.6% is nominally higher than Partners Life's 107.0%, and both clear the minimum. Partners Life's solvency capital is roughly 24 times larger, so the higher ratio does not make the smaller insurer the stronger one.

The claims figures are not comparable either, and the reason is disclosure rather than performance. Partners Life states its basis: 95% of all assessed claims in the year to 31 March 2025. Pinnacle Life publishes two different figures on two of its own pages, 94.4% of claims made and 99.3% of all claims since 1998, with no methodology on either.

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

OneChoice is a brand with three parties behind it, and the distinction matters when you read a rating or a claims figure. The brand belongs to Greenstone Financial Services NZ Limited, the policy is issued by Pinnacle Life Limited, and the risk is reinsured by Hannover Life Re of Australasia.

• Issuer: Pinnacle Life Limited, company number 4187258, incorporated 20 December 2012.
• Licensed insurer: on the RBNZ register, licence effective 29 April 2013.
• Financial strength: A.M. Best B+ (Good), issuer credit rating bbb-, outlook stable.
• Solvency at 30 June 2026: solvency capital $78.310m against an adjusted requirement of $69.530m, a ratio of 112.6%.
• Claims: OneChoice publishes no claims-paid percentage of its own; the figures above are Pinnacle Life's.
• Dates: Pinnacle Life has traded in New Zealand since 1998 and the OneChoice brand launched in 2019.
• Oversight: an active FMA Financial Institutions licence, FSP273205, granted 31 March 2025 with no conditions, and IFSO membership.

Key facts about Partners Life

Partners Life is a New Zealand life insurer owned by Japan's Dai-ichi Life Group, and it is the stronger of the two on every published measure of scale and credit rating. It has over 340,000 customers and has paid more than $1.6 billion in claims since launching in 2011.

• Insurer: Partners Life Limited, company number 3072505, incorporated 23 August 2010.
• Licensed insurer: on the RBNZ register, licence effective 3 September 2013.
• Financial strength: A.M. Best A (Excellent) with a stable outlook, effective 5 February 2026 according to Partners Life.
• Solvency at 30 June 2026: solvency capital $1,869.0m against an adjusted requirement of $1,746.9m, a ratio of 107.0%.
• Claims: 95% of all assessed claims and more than $325m paid in the year to 31 March 2025.
• Ownership: acquired by the Dai-ichi Life Group in 2022, with Overseas Investment Office consent granted on 27 October 2022.
• Oversight: an active FMA Financial Institutions licence, FSP11088, granted 31 March 2025 with no conditions.

On its own claims philosophy Partners Life undertakes that if all available evidence has been received and it is still unclear whether a claim should be accepted, it will accept the claim. That is the insurer's own statement rather than an independent review of its conduct.

Neither insurer has a public enforcement action, licence condition, or warning recorded against it on the FMA's licensed-provider register. Neither is named in any IFSO case study, decision, or media release; IFSO's site search returns no results for OneChoice, Greenstone, Pinnacle Life, or Partners Life.

If you are looking for consumer reviews of either provider, New Zealand publishes no per-insurer complaint record, so these registers are what you can actually check.

OneChoice vs Partners Life: How does their life, trauma, and disability covers compare?

OneChoice and Partners Life both sell life cover, and that is where the similarity ends. OneChoice sells serious illness and TPD cover only as optional add-ons to its life policy, with serious illness covering four conditions. Partners Life sells trauma and TPD cover standalone or accelerated, with trauma spanning three severity tiers.

Here’s a comparison:

*They are the current PL Journey Plan generation, version V01 effective 27 October 2025. Partners Life has earlier generations still in force, and their terms differ. For the full product-by-product detail, see Policywise's Partners Life insurance review.

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

OneChoice life cover runs from $100,000 to $2,000,000, for applicants aged 16 to 70, with the maximum depending on age and the underwriting outcome. Partners Life Life Cover starts at $1,000 with no published maximum, and publishes no entry age at all.

What each one adds beyond the death benefit:

• OneChoice pays death cover from day one for death by any cause in most cases, pays 100% on a terminal illness diagnosis, includes a $10,000 funeral advance for funeral or tangi costs, and allows increases of up to $250,000 per life event without underwriting.
• Partners Life pays on death from any cause or terminal illness with a 12-month prognosis, and adds a Terminal Illness Advance Benefit of 30% of the sum insured capped at $600,000 on named advanced-stage conditions.
• Partners Life also adds a Non-Survivable Accident Benefit paying the full sum insured where survival beyond three months is unlikely, a Repatriation Benefit of 25% capped at $20,000, a Return to Home Benefit capped at $10,000, financial and legal advice up to $3,000, and counselling up to $2,500.
• Partners Life increases come through a Future Insurability Option of up to 10% a year for up to 10 years, generally ending at the anniversary before age 60.

Partners Life applies a 13-month suicide and intentional self-harm exclusion from commencement or reinstatement, and the same window re-applies to any increased portion of cover. OneChoice does not publish its equivalent exclusion outside its 32-page policy document, so read that document before you buy.

If you are weighing how life cover and income cover fit together, see Policywise's guide to life insurance and income protection.

Trauma and serious illness cover: add-on or standalone

OneChoice and Partners Life take opposite approaches to trauma cover. OneChoice Serious Illness cover exists only as an optional add-on applied for alongside its life policy, and it covers four conditions: heart attack, stroke, cancer, and coronary artery bypass surgery.

The practical consequences:

• OneChoice: cover of $50,000 to $500,000, entry ages 16 to 59, and no standalone option. OneChoice does not publish whether a Serious Illness claim reduces the life cover it sits on.
• Partners Life tiers: Trauma Cover (47 conditions standalone, 46 accelerated), Moderate Trauma Cover (47 conditions on less severe triggers), and Severe Trauma Cover (38 standalone, 34 accelerated). Each is a separate purchasable cover with its own sum insured.
• Standalone versus accelerated: a standalone trauma claim does not reduce your life cover, while an accelerated claim does, up to a combined cap equal to the life cover sum insured.
• Early payments: on Accelerated Trauma Cover, the optional Diagnosis Benefit pays 25% of the trauma sum insured up to $100,000 on 14 conditions, and the Partial Payment Benefit adds 10 more at the same rate. Dependent children are covered up to $50,000 at no extra premium.

Partners Life trauma cover has no blanket stand-down. A 90-day look-back applies to a subset of conditions including cancer, heart attack, and heart surgery, where signs or symptoms must not have existed in the 90 days before the application.

No claim is paid if the life assured dies within 14 days of first meeting the criteria. The three tiers and their condition lists are set out in Policywise's Partners Life Trauma Cover review.

If you want trauma cover that does not reduce your life cover when you claim, that option exists only on the Partners Life side. See Policywise's trauma insurance vs TPD comparison, or compare trauma insurance across the providers Policywise advises on before you decide.

TPD and disability cover: what each one offers

OneChoice sells TPD only as an optional add-on to its life policy, for $50,000 to $1,000,000, with entry ages 16 to 59 and cover ending at 65. Partners Life sells TPD standalone and accelerated, both current, sharing the same benefits and differing only in payment structure.

The Partners Life standalone option carries a caveat. It is standalone during working life only. At 65 and over, the payout is capped at the lesser of the TPD or life cover sum insured, and it reduces life cover. With no life cover on the policy, it expires at 65 outright.

How disability itself is defined:

• Pinnacle Life, which issues OneChoice's cover, publishes a definitions document giving three alternative triggers: an any-occupation test with a six-month continuous-absence qualifying period, the physical loss of two limbs or both eyes, and a loss-of-independent-existence test based on needing help with at least two of five daily activities. This is a Pinnacle Life-branded document rather than a OneChoice one, so confirm the wording that applies to your policy.
• Partners Life uses three named definitions: Own Occupation, Any Occupation, and Non-Occupational. Occupation-based definitions require Occupation Class 1 to 4 (the insurer's risk grading of your job) and age under 65 at the onset of disability.
• Stand-down: Partners Life applies a 90-day continuous-incapacity wait under Own and Any Occupation, waived for 20 named conditions under its No-Wait Benefit, with no stand-down under Non-Occupational.
• Lesser losses: Partners Life adds a Partial and Permanent Disability Benefit of 25% of the TPD sum insured capped at $300,000, for seven named permanent losses. No OneChoice equivalent was found.

See Policywise's guide to income protection and TPD for how the two cover you differently.

OneChoice and Partners Life cover for lost income

OneChoice and Partners Life both pay a monthly benefit when illness or injury stops you working, and both treat ACC as an offset on their core income-replacement benefit rather than a top-up.

Two Partners Life covers, though, carry no offset at all on a total disability claim. OneChoice publishes fixed options. Partners Life sells six cover types on one policy.

*On the Partners Life side, the key points are the four income cover types, the two no-offset covers, and a benefit period that can run to the end of the cover term. For the benefit-by-benefit detail, see Policywise's Partners Life income protection insurance review.

What each one pays, and for how long

OneChoice pays up to 75% of your monthly pre-tax income, capped at $15,000 a month, for a benefit period of six months, one year, two years, or five years. Partners Life pays up to 62.5% on its non-taxable Agreed Value cover or up to 75% on its taxable types. The benefit period runs 12 months, 2 years, 5 years, or the full cover term.

The difference in shape is wider than the difference in percentage:

• Partners Life income types: Agreed Value (up to 62.5%, non-taxable, proof of income at application), Taxable Agreed Value (up to 75%), Agreed Loss of Earnings (up to 75%), and Indemnity Loss of Earnings (up to 75%).
• Two covers with no offsets: Mortgage Repayment Cover pays the greater of 45% of monthly income or your actual repayments, even without a mortgage. Household Expenses Cover pays your eligible household expenses or 5% of monthly income, whichever is higher. Neither carries an ACC or other-benefit offset on a total disability claim, within a combined cap of $8,000 a month.
• Rehabilitation: Partners Life pays a Vocational Retraining and Rehabilitation Benefit of up to 24 times the monthly sum insured (not available on payment terms under 2 years), adds a 25% Partial Disability Bonus for up to 12 months on a return to part-time work, and can contribute 2%, 4%, or 6% of the sum insured to your KiwiSaver provider during a claim.
• OneChoice rehabilitation: OneChoice says on its own information pages that a rehabilitation benefit of up to 50% of the income benefit is claimable for up to six months to a maximum of $3,000. Those pages carry an opinion disclaimer and the figure is not repeated on the product page, so confirm it before relying on it.

On a total disability claim, Partners Life's Mortgage Repayment Cover is one of several covers that keep paying in full alongside ACC, alongside Household Expenses Cover and the lump-sum Specific Injury Cover. If a mortgage is the bill you most need covered, mortgage protection insurance is the product to ask about.

Stand-down periods and how a claim is assessed

OneChoice offers an income protection waiting period of 30 or 90 days, chosen at application. Partners Life publishes no menu of stand-down periods and sets yours in the Policy Schedule. One floor is published: Occupation Class 5 carries a minimum of 13 weeks, or the Schedule value if that is longer.

How ACC interacts with each benefit varies sharply between the two providers.

• OneChoice: your benefit is the lesser of the amount insured or 75% of pre-tax income, reduced by other offsets including paid sick leave, other insurance policies, and ACC or other government payments.
• Partners Life income cover: before-tax ACC benefits for the same disability are offset, excluding lump-sum pain-and-suffering payments unless paid monthly. Other insurers' benefits are offset only above 62.5% or 75% of pre-disability income.
• Partners Life no-offset covers: Mortgage Repayment Cover and Household Expenses Cover carry no offsets on a total disability claim, and Specific Injury Cover pays 100% even where an ACC claim is made for the same injury.
• Recurrence: Partners Life can waive the stand-down period on a recurrence or new disability within 12 months of a prior claim ending.

OneChoice publishes its full exclusion list for income protection:

• Intentional self-inflicted acts
• Attempted suicide
• Normal pregnancy or childbirth
• War or riot
• Criminal activity
• Elective surgery
• Pre-existing conditions

Partners Life refers exclusions to its master policy document rather than listing them per benefit.

OneChoice funeral plans vs Partners Life policies with bereavement support

Only OneChoice sells a standalone funeral policy. Partners Life's current PL Journey Plan has no funeral product at all, and pays funeral money as benefits inside its life and medical cover. So this is not a comparison of two funeral policies. It is a comparison of a product against a benefit.

Three things follow from that table. OneChoice is the only one of these two options if you cannot be underwritten, because Partners Life's current PL Journey Plan has no guaranteed-acceptance product anywhere in its range.

OneChoice's 12-month window covers accidental death and accidental serious injury only, so a natural-cause death inside the first year is not covered. And Bereavement Support pays faster than a death claim.

A standard Partners Life death claim under the current PL Journey Plan needs probate or letters of administration where the deceased was the sole policy owner, while Bereavement Support needs only written notice.

Partners Life also pays a second funeral benefit through Private Medical Cover's optional Health Journey Support Option. It pays $10,000 for a life assured aged 10 or over and $2,000 under 10, with no excess, and is void if death is by suicide within 13 months. The riders and the cross-links are covered in Policywise's Partners Life insurance review.

What funeral insurance offers and where it falls short

OneChoice's funeral insurance buys certainty of acceptance and speed of payment, and little else. A moderate attended funeral of around 50 people costs on average about $11,700 for a cremation and $14,300 for a burial. That is on the Funeral Directors Association of New Zealand's own survey. FDANZ says that is a more realistic picture than advertising suggesting $30,000 or more.

What OneChoice's funeral cover does well:

• Claims speed: it pays most funeral claims within one business day of receiving the paperwork.
• Guaranteed acceptance: no blood tests or medicals for New Zealand residents aged 18 to 79.
• A real gap: the Work and Income Funeral Grant maxes out at $2,697.43 and is income- and asset-tested, roughly a fifth to a quarter of FDANZ's average cost.

Where it falls short:

• Premiums vs payout: IFSO warns that funeral insurance is a risk product, not a savings plan, and that total premiums paid over a long life can exceed the amount paid out. In one IFSO case study, a woman who insured her husband for $20,000 in 2010 had paid more than that in premiums by 2020. OneChoice's own terms differ on this point: premiums stop at 85, and the policy pays 125% of the benefit at 100.
• Cover lapses if premiums stop, and there is no refund of accumulated premiums outside the 30-day cooling-off period.
• First-year limit: IFSO notes that many funeral policies pay in the first 12 months only for accidental death, and cites a declined claim for death from terminal illness inside that window.
• It pays only on death. Stroke, heart attack, and cancer are all conditions many people survive, sometimes for years, and a funeral policy pays nothing on a diagnosis, a hospitalisation, or a recovery. It pays only when the policyholder dies.
• No income replacement: funeral cover does nothing for lost income. Income cover and trauma cover are what fill that gap.

The rider model has its own shortfalls. Bereavement Support reduces the remaining life cover sum insured, the child funeral benefit excludes deaths caused by a pre-existing condition, and neither is available at all to someone who cannot be underwritten.

Bank accounts are not simply frozen on death: a bank will release funds from the deceased's account to pay for the funeral without waiting for probate or letters of administration.

Since 24 September 2025, institutions may also release money and life insurance payouts of up to $40,000 per asset without probate, though they are permitted rather than compelled to do so.

Other cover Partners Life offers

Partners Life sells five further covers, two of them the Mortgage Repayment and Household Expenses covers within the Monthly Disability Cover described above.

OneChoice's product set is limited to life, income protection, and funeral cover, so private medical, injury, mortgage, household, and business cover are whole categories it does not compete in.

• Private Medical Cover carries a $600,000 Surgical Benefit limit and a $500,000 Non-Surgical Benefit limit per life assured per policy year, with non-Pharmac but Medsafe-indicated drugs (approved by the medicines regulator but not subsidised) covered to $25,000 a year on base cover. Optional modules cover specialist and tests, overseas treatment, non-subsidised drugs, and guaranteed wordings, and the excess is selectable in set levels from $0 up to $10,000. Its Health Journey Support Option carries the Funeral Support Benefit described above. Ask Policywise for the details on Partners Life's health insurance.
• Specific Injury Cover pays an immediate lump sum of 1 to 60 times the sum insured across eight injury-severity categories, with no wait period, and is not reduced by any ACC payment. It carries no funeral or bereavement benefit.
• Mortgage Repayment Cover pays the greater of 45% of monthly income or your actual repayments, even with no mortgage, with no offsets on a total disability claim. Its base product has no funeral benefit, but its optional Lifestyle Assist Option adds a death benefit of three times the monthly sum insured.
• Household Expenses Cover pays your eligible household expenses or 5% of monthly income, whichever is higher, also with no offsets on a total disability claim.
• Business-risk covers exist by name for owners and partnerships, including Ownership Buyout, Debt Protection, Permanent Loss of Key Person, Loss of Revenue, and Shareholder Protection. They are a separate conversation with an adviser.

Partners Life sells no standalone redundancy cover in its current range. If health insurance is the category that matters most to you, compare health insurance plans across the insurers Policywise advises on, because OneChoice has nothing to put in that comparison.

Pre-existing conditions, health questions and underwriting

OneChoice asks health and lifestyle questions by phone, with no medicals or blood tests for its life cover up to a $2 million maximum. It also accepts funeral applicants with no blood tests or medicals. Partners Life individually underwrites every product in its range and has no guaranteed-acceptance product.

If you have a pre-existing condition, our guides to life insurance and pre-existing conditions and health insurance for pre-existing conditions set out how insurers assess it.

OneChoice: guaranteed acceptance and the stand-down

OneChoice Funeral Insurance is guaranteed acceptance for New Zealand residents aged 18 to 79, with no blood tests or medicals. The trade-off is the stand-down: in the first 12 months, the policy covers accidental serious injury and accidental death only, and natural-cause death is covered after that.

Its other products are not guaranteed acceptance. Life, serious illness, TPD, and income protection all involve phone questions about health, work, and lifestyle, with no medicals or blood tests.

Pre-existing conditions are excluded from income protection cover. For life and serious illness, OneChoice publishes its pre-existing rules only inside its 32-page policy document, so ask for that position in writing.

Partners Life: what the application asks

Partners Life underwrites every application individually, and its duty of disclosure treats your claims history, medical history, pre-existing symptoms, treatments, medications, and financial position as material facts. Its life cover carries no general pre-existing-condition exclusion, with one benefit-level exception: the child funeral benefit.

More questions up front means fewer surprises later, but only if the answers are complete. IFSO's case studies show what happens when they are not. In one, a life claim was declined, and the policy was avoided after undisclosed diabetes, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and asthma came to light. Two independent underwriters confirmed the omissions were material.

An adviser who knows what underwriters treat as material can help at the application stage. Reviewing your cover regularly as your health changes is also part of what an insurance adviser does, according to the FMA.

Immediate cover and stand-down periods

OneChoice provides free interim Accidental Death Cover for up to 30 days while your application is assessed. Partners Life publishes no equivalent for its current PL Journey Plan generation, and the word interim does not appear anywhere in its master policy document.

Both give you a 30-day window to change your mind:

• OneChoice: a 30-day money-back guarantee, with a full premium refund if you cancel and have not claimed.
• Partners Life: a 30-day Free Look Period. Cancelling inside it voids the policy from inception and refunds all premiums paid.

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