Reviewing insurance: 15 life and business changes that should prompt a review

Having a baby or growing your family

A new baby changes three things at once: how many people depend on your income, how much cover that income needs to replace, and how quickly you have to act. Insurers give you a short window to add a newborn to health cover without a full health declaration, and that window is measured in months, not years.

Start with the covers that replace money. Birth or adoption is a listed special event at AIA and Partners Life. Pregnancy itself is an additional trigger at Asteron Life, Chubb, Fidelity Life, and nib. This lets you raise life cover without new underwriting: within 12 months at AIA, and within 180 days (6 months) at Asteron, Chubb, nib, and Partners Life.

AIA's trauma and TPD facility runs a shorter window, 60 days either side of the event. Fidelity Life's window is the later of six months after the event or 30 days after your next policy anniversary, whichever runs longer.

Then add the baby to your family health cover:

• within three months from birth on Southern Cross, cover their qualifying pre-existing conditions
• automatically covered for the first four months in AIA
• within four months on nib's Ultimate Health and Health Max plans, covering pre-existing conditions except for any congenital conditions
• under six months at UniMed

Normal pregnancy and childbirth are excluded at nib, Southern Cross, and UniMed.

Buying a home or property, or taking on a mortgage

A mortgage turns a monthly payment into an obligation your family carries whether or not you can work. Review your mortgage-linked cover whenever the loan size changes.

New Zealand households owed $22 for every $100 of property in the year to June 2024, and cover bought when the loan was smaller doesn't grow with it. nib, Partners Life, and Fidelity Life each sell a dedicated mortgage-linked product that lets you raise a mortgage-linked benefit without new health questions.

A mortgage or loan increase is also a special-event trigger on general life cover at all six panel life insurers, including AIA, Asteron Life, and Chubb, which sell no dedicated mortgage product.

nib treats a rise in interest rates as a qualifying event, capped at the lesser of 115% of the repayment increase or $750 a month.

Partners Life adds cover when the Official Cash Rate rises 1% or more over 12 months, and Fidelity Life lets you add cover for a new or increased mortgage of up to 45% of your gross income or 115% of your monthly mortgage repayments.

None of the three reduces as the loan amortises, so review mortgage protection, life cover, income protection, and trauma cover together rather than one at a time.

Getting married or moving in together

Marrying or moving in together gives you a second person whose living costs depend on your income, which is why life insurance for couples is one of the first things worth checking.

It is also an event where the paperwork matters as much as the cover amount:

• who owns the policy
• who is named as beneficiary
• whether you married rather than moved in (at four of the six panel insurers with a special-event facility)

Couples registered 17,481 marriages and civil unions in 2025. Only nib and Asteron Life let a de facto relationship trigger a no-underwriting increase in its own right. At the same time, AIA, Chubb, Fidelity Life, and Partners Life confine it to marriage or civil union as a relationship-formation trigger.

However, most recognise a de facto partner's death as a separate event, and nib and Chubb also name de facto separation.

A couple's health policy is not one shared set of terms either. Each person keeps their own excess, exclusions, and claim-history clock, and at Southern Cross Wellbeing, UltraCare, and KiwiCare, adding a partner triggers fresh underwriting for that partner alone, based on health conditions known before joining.

Leaving your company or starting a new job

Group cover arranged by an employer usually ends when the job does. Where a continuation option exists, it lets leavers move onto an individual policy without a full health assessment:

• 60 days at Asteron Life
• 45 days at Fidelity Life
• 30-day window at UniMed

Your employer must notify UniMed within 30 days of you leaving, and you then must complete a full application and be medically underwritten.

Continuation is rarely like-for-like.

• Fidelity Life issues an individual policy with no health evidence, but at individual rates and capped at the benefit you held on your last day.
• Asteron Life re-underwrites your occupation, residence, and pursuits rather than your health.
• AIA automatically reclassifies your occupation class, which determines the disability test itself on income protection, after 12 or more months on leave without pay or three or more months' unemployment before disablement.

Starting, growing, or selling a business

Going into business changes who insures you and how your income is defined. Review your income protection, key person, and business cover whenever your trading structure changes.

Reports from February 2025 reveal that 74% of the 617,330 in New Zealand did not have any (paid) employees, and a sole trader in that position has no employer scheme behind them.

Self-employed insurance is instead priced on personal exertion after business expenses, rather than a payroll record—the formulation nib and Fidelity Life both use.

Insurers have a different take on what makes you a business owner.

• AIA looks for control of more than 25% of the entity paying you.
• Chubb uses 20 hours a week instead.

Growing usually means some mix of key person insurance, ownership buyout, and business expenses cover, though not every insurer offers all three.

Selling belongs on the same list. Asteron Life's Business Disability cover ends outright once you lose your ownership interest, so arrange business insurance advice before the sale settles, not after.

Getting a pay rise

On individual cover, a pay rise only increases your cover if you tell your insurer. At AIA, nib, Fidelity Life, and Chubb, income protection is capped as a percentage of gross, before-tax income, and that scheduled amount doesn't update itself when your income does, whichever cover type you hold.

On an indemnity policy specifically, paid against income at claim time rather than a fixed amount, it works the other way too: a pay cut can shrink your payout even though the schedule hasn't changed.

AIA, nib, and Fidelity Life pay the lesser of the scheduled amount or 75% of pre-disability income on indemnity cover.

Partners Life's Agreed Value option is fixed at application rather than reassessed at claim time, and caps at 62.5% of the income declared at application, on a basis not confirmed as gross.

Some group schemes may not follow a pay rise automatically either. For example, Fidelity Life's income protection takes your salary from the scheme schedule [Fidelity Life, 2025].

A recent medical diagnosis or health concern

Check first what your health policy already pays for specialist consultations, diagnostic imaging, and medicines Pharmac doesn't fund; these benefits differ sharply by insurer. A new diagnosis can be a lot to take in, and it narrows what new cover you can buy, so this review is about using the cover you already hold rather than adding to it.

Tell your insurer what it needs to know, when it needs to know it. The Insurance & Financial Services Ombudsman says you must give your insurer the information it requires when you first arrange a policy, at every renewal (for life, income protection, and health cover), and for anything happening between application and cover starting.

Whether a new diagnosis on a policy you've already held for years needs reporting depends on your certificate's specific terms, so check it or ask your adviser rather than assume either way.

The mechanics also vary by insurer. nib's Ultimate Health builds non-Pharmac cancer-treatment cover in at $20,000 a year, while Southern Cross's HealthEssentials excludes non-Pharmac medicines entirely.

Losing a family member

Losing someone brings two reviews at once: claiming on the cover they held, and rechecking your own now that income and dependants have changed.

All six life insurers on the Policywise panel pay a bereavement advance of roughly $15,000–$25,000 on notification of death, deducted from the full sum insured later..

At Fidelity Life, how fast the rest arrives depends on whether they'd nominated a beneficiary. Its claims guide sets out that a nominated beneficiary claims directly with a certified death certificate, while a claim over $15,000 with no nomination needs Probate or Letters of Administration, taking several months to issue.

Check the surviving policies too. A death-triggered waiver of premium runs two years on AIA's health cover, three at Partners Life, and at UniMed the lesser of 36 months or until the oldest surviving member turns 70.

Policywise can support the beneficiary through the claims process itself, not just the cover check that follows it.

Receiving a large lump sum

An inheritance, a settlement, or a windfall can mean you need less cover, not more. At Partners Life, reducing a sum insured is straightforward, and its wording implies restoring it later counts as a new increase needing approval. Consider reducing deliberately, with advice, rather than as a reflex.

At four panel income protection insurers (AIA, nib, Fidelity Life, and Chubb), investing the money shouldn't shrink a payout. All four exclude passive income like rent, interest, and dividends from their offset calculations.

UniMed's Health Positive, Hospital Select Plus, and UniCare Advantage plans show a separate asymmetry. This means no health declaration to decrease cover, but one may be wanted to increase it.

If the windfall genuinely reduces what you need to insure, a Policywise adviser can help you decide what to scale back and what to keep.

Separating or divorcing

If you're separating, check who owns each policy, who's named as beneficiary, and who stays on a family health plan—these are administrative changes as much as financial ones. We understand this is a difficult time to be dealing with paperwork, but a short list of admin now avoids a bigger problem later.

All six panel insurers selling life cover treat divorce or legal separation as a special-event trigger, letting you raise cover without new underwriting. nib's and Chubb's wordings also name separating from a de facto relationship.

Southern Cross and UniMed don't sell life cover, so the trigger doesn't apply if that's where your health cover sits.

This is a reality for many, as the Family Court granted 7,887 divorces in 2025. So, if you're taken off a family health policy as an adult, you have a short window to take out your own cover without a full health declaration: 30 days at nib and UniMed.

The Policywise guide to insurance and divorce works through each cover type in detail.

Children growing up

As children reach their late teens and twenties, the cover you built around them changes shape. Life insurance for children sized to raise dependants may not need to stay that large, and family health insurance changes how a child is treated on the family policy, on a schedule that varies by insurer.

Children age off at 21 at Partners Life, 20 at Southern Cross (after which a child can no longer be added, though an existing adult child stays on the policy unless removed), and 25 at UniMed. Meanwhile, AIA and nib instead keep the child on the policy at adult premiums from the next anniversary after 21.

Check which rule applies to your policy because many households may find this complex. This is especially important because just over a third (34.5%) of New Zealand families with children had adult children living at home at the 2023 Census, and no health insurer checked extends dependant status for full-time study. Some benefits guarantee your child a conversion to their own cover rather than a straight cancellation.

Fidelity Life will issue a young adult up to $200,000 of their own life cover with no health questions, within three months of their 18th, 21st, 25th, or 30th birthday, marriage, or becoming a parent, once per child.

On the other hand, nib and Partners Life convert children's trauma cover at 21, and Asteron Life's Personal Insurance Kids Cover can also convert to adult cover after 21.

Approaching retirement

Approaching 65 changes what your cover can still do. Income protection commonly ends at 65, though this varies by insurer, and health cover keeps mattering: cover doesn't automatically stop just because you're older.

Chubb extends some income-protection occupations to 70, and nib also lets you choose a to-70 benefit period.

None of the four health insurers with an ingested wording caps the health-cover renewal age. AIA's Private Health wording doesn't state one either way, though nib and AIA say premiums keep climbing with age.

It's worth keeping in mind that age 65 is also when New Zealand Superannuation kicks in, so it's a natural point where private cover and public entitlements start to interact. From 1 April 2026, NZ Super pays $1,110.30 a fortnight to a single person living alone. This income can offset some of what income protection would otherwise cover, but it doesn't replace the health and critical illness protection that private policies provide.

Some cover narrows or ends outright at 65 rather than just carrying on. Partners Life's TPD cover switches to a non-occupational definition at 65, and ends automatically if you hold no Life Cover on the same policy. Southern Cross's critical illness maximum drops to $20,000 after 65.

Check both your income protection and TPD terms at this point. This is also a natural time to review KiwiSaver alongside your wider retirement plan.

Losing income

Cancelling can feel like the cheapest option when income drops, but it usually costs more later.

Before you cancel, several levers can cut the premium and keep the policy alive, though not all insurers offer pausing, changing the premium structure, dropping a module, or raising the excess and stand-down period.

These options matter more than ever given the current jobs market, where unemployment was 5.6% in the June 2026 quarter. So it's worth reviewing redundancy insurance at the same time if your policy includes it, rather than reaching straight for cancellation.

Pausing is not one thing. Partners Life separates a premium holiday of up to six months, where cover stays claimable, from a suspension of up to 12 months, with no claims payable.

Lapsing is different again, and the door may not reopen. For example, nib's Ultimate Health cancels once a premium is more than 90 days overdue, and its cancellation section contains no reinstatement provision.

A quick conversation with a Policy adviser before cancelling can surface options a cancellation form won't.

Positive changes to your health and lifestyle

Quitting smoking can lower your life, trauma, and income protection premiums, if you tell your insurer and ask for a review—health premiums aren't guaranteed to move the same way, and Southern Cross doesn't re-rate for cessation at all.

At UniMed's SmartCare and SmartCare+ plans, reaching a healthier weight can also reduce your premium through a BMI Discount that rewards three or more years of continuous cover, assessed at fixed anniversaries with GP confirmation of a BMI between 18.5 and 24.99, rather than a request-triggered review.

Asteron Life and nib re-rate a non-smoker after 12 months smoke-free. Where published, the process is a self-declaration, not a medical test. AIA takes a phone or written non-smoker declaration, and nib uses a form for people 21 and over.

Vaping counts as smoking under AIA's Lifestyle Booster terms, nib's non-smoker declaration, and Fidelity Life's Mortgage Protector wording specifically, and at Asteron the reduction isn't backdated, running from notification rather than the quit date.

More broadly, Partners Life's condition-based premium loadings (not specific to smoking) range 50–400%, reviewed on request apart from rare per-mille cancer loadings, with medical evidence of lower risk needed to reduce them.

For employers: reviewing group insurance as your business and team changes

If you provide group cover, book a group insurance scheme review whenever your headcount changes, your salary bands move, you add a senior person, renewal comes round, you restructure, or a competitor changes what it offers.

At some insurers, including Fidelity Life, automatic acceptance limits, premium rates, and cover levels move with your headcount and payroll, and some can suspend automatically.

• Headcount changes. Fidelity Life may suspend its automatic acceptance limit once your insured lives drop to nine or fewer. Asteron instead reviews cover on a discretionary basis once membership shifts by 10 or more lives or 30%.
• Salary bands move. At Fidelity Life, cover recalculates on a pay rise only with a continuous salary review facility on the schedule.
• You add a senior person. At Fidelity Life, cover above the automatic acceptance limit needs evidence of insurability; Asteron assesses such members individually instead.
• Renewal comes round. Fidelity Life can vary your group rates on a month's notice if insured lives change by 30% or more.
• You restructure. At Fidelity Life, unpaid leave beyond parental leave needs written consent, ending cover in 12–24 months. Asteron keeps paying instead, though it caps the income protection benefit at $2,500 a month if disability starts more than 12 months into the leave.
• Competitors change what they offer. Fidelity Life, Asteron, and UniMed don't write competitor benchmarking into the wording; that's a scheme review's job, not the policy's, so ask your adviser to check the market for you.

The Policywise group insurance hub covers what each product does and how schemes are set up.

When it's time for a routine insurance review

Some review triggers have nothing to do with a life event: your premium jumps, a better product reaches the market, you pay down debt, or government policy shifts. Health insurance premiums measured by the CPI rose almost 20% in the year to September 2025, and changes to what Pharmac funds or public wait times can move what your cover is worth without you doing anything.

A good moment to look at your cover again is when any of these apply:

• Your premium jumps: nib may change premiums for law changes, higher medical costs, benefit improvements, or unexpected claims increases, with at least 30 days' notice.
• Better products reach the market: Partners Life automatically passes improved wordings through on its PLJP moderate trauma cover, and nib does the same on Ultimate TPD, Trauma, and IP. Check whether your policy does the same before assuming you need to switch.
• Significant debt is reduced or paid off: Cover sized to a mortgage does not automatically shrink as the mortgage does at nib, Partners Life, or Fidelity Life, so paying down a loan with one of these is a prompt to resize your cover.
• Government policy shifts: Pharmac's $604 million uplift funded 66 medicines in its first year, and 64.5% of patients received planned care within four months in late 2025, against a 95% target for 2030. These are worth checking against what your own policy actually covers.

What to check when you review your cover

A cover review comes down to six checks, starting with your cover amount and excess. Some of what applies to you sits on your policy schedule rather than the wording, especially your exclusions and loadings, so check both.

• Is your cover amount still right? At AIA, nib, and Fidelity Life, income protection on indemnity cover is capped at 75% of gross pre-disability income. Partners Life's Agreed Value option caps at 62.5% of the income declared at application, on a basis not confirmed as gross.
• Is your excess still at the right level? Raising your excess lowers the premium at AIA, nib, and on Southern Cross's Wellbeing plan. Lowering it may require underwriting at AIA and UniMed, or a new application at nib that could add new terms to your policy. nib's health excess applies once per person per year, not per claim.
• Exclusions, loadings, and pre-existing conditions: How insurers define a pre-existing condition varies by policy, and how yours is treated depends on the specific exclusions and loadings on your schedule, so check both. Some exclusions also lift with time, including nib's Easy Health and Southern Cross's UltraCare after three years.
• Optional extras and modules, in both directions: A review can add cover as easily as it removes it. nib's Ultimate Health Max carries six optional modules, each with its own stand-down period counted from the day you add it.
• Beneficiaries and who owns the policy: Naming a beneficiary lets them claim directly instead of going through Probate, for a claim over $15,000 at Fidelity Life, so check yours is up to date. Ownership rules vary too. For instance, a trust can't own AIA's Private Health cover.
• Premiums, affordability, and inflation adjustments: Level and stepped premiums behave differently over time, so check which structure your policy uses. The Ombudsman records one premium rising from $49 to $190 a month at age 80 when a level structure switched to rate-for-age.

How often should you review your insurance if nothing has changed?

Once a year, at your policy anniversary. The Ombudsman advises checking your policy each year at renewal and reviewing next year's premiums. Indexation and rate-for-age step-ups are both anniversary-anchored, which makes it a practical date to pick.

CPI increases apply automatically at Asteron and Fidelity Life, with nib applying a discretionary 1–10% rise (excluding health plans). AIA's income protection and mortgage cover, and Chubb, apply it only if you've opted in.

Rate-for-age premiums step up on the same date, so put it in your calendar as a prompt.

Does reviewing your insurance mean you have to switch?

No. A review usually ends with an adjustment to cover you already hold, not a new policy. For life, trauma, or income protection cover specifically, switching insurers may mean the new insurer assesses your medical history to the date of application, which can add exclusions or loadings your current policy lacks.

Ask about continuity concessions:

• Asteron waives its three-month deferred start after three-plus months' prior cover
• Fidelity Life waives stand-downs on replaced cover
• nib's Ultimate Health Max credits time already served toward its waiting periods

These concessions exist for good reason because replacement business has a documented history of leaving customers worse off.

The Financial Markets Authority found in 2018 that most "new" life insurance in New Zealand was actually replacement business, and fewer than half the firms reviewed told customers replacing cover could mean worse cover or lost benefits. That's exactly why continuity concessions are worth asking about before any switch, not after.

At Southern Cross, though, time served doesn't carry over. It reviews critical illness exclusions only after five years of continuous cover, so a switch resets that clock. A comparison is most useful with your current policy schedules to hand, so it starts from what you actually hold.

Policywise: Helping your personal and group cover keep pace with life and business changes

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