The Great Insurance Rort of 2022

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Forums › Finance and wealth management › The Great Insurance Rort of 2022

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20141 posts

Uber Geek

#2935385 28-Jun-2022 15:05

MikeB4: The government needs to go after these companies. The grocery sector has nothing on these rip off merchants.

It seems to again be a lack of competition, and companies being allowed to merge, with many brands owned by the same company. Same problem in the building materials market. NZ is a sitting duck for lack of competition.

langi27

675 posts

Ultimate Geek

#2935386 28-Jun-2022 15:06

I'll get on this bandwagon.

Had the same issue with AMI jacking up my insurance about 30%, from memory they wanted $900 premium for my $8,000 Nissan Leaf.

Shopped around and found Trademe insurance were significantly cheaper and got the $8,000 leaf insured for $350 (ish).

I did give AMI the opportunity to price match and they weren't remotely interested. So shifted all my insurance to trademe.

AMI lost about $5,000 in premiums across all the stuff I have insured.

One thing it did do was force me to look at my total insurance needs rather than just roll over a new year.

mattwnz

20141 posts

Uber Geek

#2935389 28-Jun-2022 15:08

sen8or:

Be very wary of changing medical insurance providers, a condition or event covered under your current provider may not be covered by your new one (pre-existing condition) and your "savings" could be very costly......

NZ already has a public health system, so people paying for private insurance are essentially paying twice. But there maybe some benefits to private insurance and for certain people. Some people prefer to self insure instead for health, and also use the public system, but pay privately if the need arises.

mattwnz

20141 posts

Uber Geek

#2935390 28-Jun-2022 15:10

langi27:

I'll get on this bandwagon.

Had the same issue with AMI jacking up my insurance about 30%, from memory they wanted $900 premium for my $8,000 Nissan Leaf.

Shopped around and found Trademe insurance were significantly cheaper and got the $8,000 leaf insured for $350 (ish).

I did give AMI the opportunity to price match and they weren't remotely interested. So shifted all my insurance to trademe.

AMI lost about $5,000 in premiums across all the stuff I have insured.

One thing it did do was force me to look at my total insurance needs rather than just roll over a new year.

Isn't trademe reselling another companies insurance? Not sure, but it could be tower, as I think they have similar looking calculators. But you can save so much by shopping around companies.

langi27

675 posts

Ultimate Geek

#2935401 28-Jun-2022 15:31

Trademe are reselling tower insurance products, I don't know why but trademe were cheaper for the exact same policy. My instance anyway, looking at his thread and other ones, seems to be very dependant on who you are, where you live, what day of the week, what you had for breakfast.

alasta

6703 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Subscriber

#2935413 28-Jun-2022 16:00

Lias:

sen8or:

Be very wary of changing medical insurance providers, a condition or event covered under your current provider may not be covered by your new one (pre-existing condition) and your "savings" could be very costly......

Also worth noting that Southern Cross is a not-for-profit, unlike most of if not all of their competitors. I find it hard to believe their for profit commercial competitors can offer the same level of cover and pay-outs, undercut their prices and still make a profit. My money's on the level of cover or the ability to access pay-outs being lower than SC's.

Southern Cross are trying to hit me with a 27% increase whereas Unimed, also a mutual society, is offering it much cheaper.

It's a good point about pre-existing conditions though. I will definitely check that.

johno1234

2793 posts

Uber Geek

#2935419 28-Jun-2022 16:08

My Touareg policy has got progressively cheaper over the last 3 years as the agreed value diminishes. It is with AMI and they also have, bizarrely, locked in no-claims bonus even if you make a claim. I really don't understand how or why that works but it does. I have claimed a couple of times and still get the 60% discount.

Having said that, hitting Trademe Insurance quote gets me approx $100p.a. saving.

* hard to know exactly as they don't offer quarterly payment and the premium varies depending on fortnightly/monthly or annual.

HOWEVER: Going incognito to AMI for an annual quote gets me a discount of $270 over my existing cover!

Time to have a wee chat with them...

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Eva888

2427 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#2935433 28-Jun-2022 16:38

Husbands Southern Cross was getting ridiculously high. I rang them and halved the amount I had to pay by taking a bigger excess for surgery, but not losing any specialist benefits. I had a choice of a 2 or 4K excess. Took the $4k option and since no claims for surgery in one year saved that much already.

Worst case will have to pay $4k for surgery, but am relying that if something is urgent and life threatening, public will do any surgery and private will just be back up if the queue is too long and discomfort is high.

Be careful about changing providers as many pre existing conditions won’t be covered depending on age and then if you go back to the original provider, they won’t cover you again as before.

allan

2043 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Lifetime subscriber

#2935508 28-Jun-2022 17:16

mattwnz:

sen8or:

Be very wary of changing medical insurance providers, a condition or event covered under your current provider may not be covered by your new one (pre-existing condition) and your "savings" could be very costly......

NZ already has a public health system, so people paying for private insurance are essentially paying twice. But there maybe some benefits to private insurance and for certain people. Some people prefer to self insure instead for health, and also use the public system, but pay privately if the need arises.

Have you tried to access the public system recently though?

Lots of publicity about the pressure on A&E departments, but other areas of DHBs have huge backlogs at present. I've been waiting on a follow-up MRI since last December for something non-malignant, but potentially serious if ignored and finally have an appointment for for next week. This is despite me continually chasing it up and eventually requesting to have it done privately (at my expense) - but that didn't happen because the hospital specialist never produced the referral. So finally back to the public system for me. Totally explains why people have private insurance if they can afford it.

sen8or

1787 posts

Uber Geek

#2935520 28-Jun-2022 17:58

My parents have recently made the decision to stop southern cross after about 50 years due to the cost ($18k for both), but in the last 20 or so years, they would certainly be on the worthwhile side of things (cardiologist interventions, knees replaced, various other procedures). With our family history of heart issues, I'm not prepared to gamble on the public system but accept that this is a luxury that others can't or don't have.

As for the public system, mixed results from that. Brother with throat cancer, very good treatment before and after surgery (and great treatment whilst in hospital). Mother in law, dementia and breast cancer, still waiting for scan results weeks after initial diagnosis to see scope of cancer and what treatment options are available etc.

decibel

315 posts

Ultimate Geek

#2935584 28-Jun-2022 18:52

MikeB4: AIG/State? They are increasing premiums by 35%. The government needs to go after these companies. The grocery sector has nothing on these rip off merchants.

?? it was a bunch of Labour party rat-bags who sold off State years ago; back when they had the best premiums in the marketplace !!

mattwnz

20141 posts

Uber Geek

#2935637 28-Jun-2022 19:12

allan:

mattwnz:

NZ already has a public health system, so people paying for private insurance are essentially paying twice. But there maybe some benefits to private insurance and for certain people. Some people prefer to self insure instead for health, and also use the public system, but pay privately if the need arises.

Have you tried to access the public system recently though?

Lots of publicity about the pressure on A&E departments, but other areas of DHBs have huge backlogs at present. I've been waiting on a follow-up MRI since last December for something non-malignant, but potentially serious if ignored and finally have an appointment for for next week. This is despite me continually chasing it up and eventually requesting to have it done privately (at my expense) - but that didn't happen because the hospital specialist never produced the referral. So finally back to the public system for me. Totally explains why people have private insurance if they can afford it.

Yes very recently and it was about 6 weeks to get a cat scan. But I understand many things are done through the public system anyway even if having insurance. Even going privately you can get big waits. The current situation with hospitals is not normal and is why IMO the government need to do more to control the spread of both Covid and the Flu, eg free flu vaccines for all, and enforcing mask use in retail. Also if they are increasing the population, they also need to increase health resources.

mudguard

2113 posts

Uber Geek

#2935641 28-Jun-2022 19:20

timmmay:

You need to read the policy wording to really compare policies.

This is the difficulty I have. Perhaps I'm a bit sticky, but I know what I'm covered for. Inevitably I could save $100 per year and then find out there's no discount on rental car etc.

NB my vehicle is 90% business use.

Wheelbarrow01

1723 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Chorus

#2935703 28-Jun-2022 23:19

Scott3:

Owning less cars - With insurance being charged on a per car basis, those with many car's get ripped off.

I reckon for every 3 vehicles you insure you should get cover for the 4th of equal or lesser value free of charge. Or you could have an app and in-car transponder - customers pay a base rate for fire/theft, but every time they leave their property, the transponder data logs it and starts charging for full cover on a per minute/hour basis, but only while the vehicle is on the move with the engine running. Maybe I'll start my own insurance company with these ideas as my business model 😅

I have an '80's Hilux which I've owned for 20 years and it was insured continuously with State until 2018. It was on set and forget direct debit and I never looked at the policy documents. In 2018 I finally comprehended that I was paying around $500 a year for 3rd party, fire & theft cover on a vehicle whose value State had written down to just $1800 - with a $750 excess! I had effectively paid their maximum payout figure several times over.

Once I realised that rort I promptly cancelled the policy. What made the situation ridiculous is that the Hilux had by this time been laid up in the far corner of the back yard for several years - with no chance of it crashing into anyone else, self-combusting or being stolen.

Early last year I extracted it from it's resting place (no easy feat!) and commenced a ground up restoration. I've poured over $10k into it already (with a lot more to go), but it is now driveable and road legal again for the first time in almost a decade. It now lives in the garage and most weekends I do a bit more work on it.

Earlier this year I took out a fantastic value comprehensive policy for it through Star Insurance. It's insured as a hobby/restoration vehicle that rarely gets driven, agreed value of $15k and the premium is an absolute bargain at a shade over $200/year.

I got a quote from Star for my Touareg, but it seems their value premiums really only apply to hobby/resto cars that aren't driven daily.

jonb

1771 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#2935774 29-Jun-2022 09:28

Was surprised when got new vehicle last year that Toyota insurance was way cheaper than any State/AMI/AA type quote. Was just humouring them the dealership to agree to a quote but was a few hundred less than any others, under $1000 for $60k vehicle.

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