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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tripper1000

1618 posts

Uber Geek

#2936424 30-Jun-2022 11:56

PolicyGuy: They don't want to be government owned but they do want government (Health and ACC) money. Hmm.

If I was Minister of Health - fortunately this will never be the case - I would write to St John and to Wellington Free Ambulance and tell them that....

The Government will buy their ambulance operating businesses from them, either for $1 and the government will take over all their assets and liabilities, or at valuation but all the liabilities stay with the vendor - they can pick which option......

So you must also think that the Govt is going a top notch job or running hospitals, police and the justice system, and that the ambulance service(s) could do with dragging up their their levels of truly expeditious and dependable service?

St Johns has a tight budget and is absolutely ruthless when it comes to efficiency. I'm sure the country would benefit more from St John taking over the Govt than the Govt taking over St Johns.

Scott3

3972 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#2936448 30-Jun-2022 12:52

Good points on the international situation. Should note that NZ would have gone from being a fairly low risk place to insure, to moderate / high in light of recent earthquake's and weather events.

Material risk of an entire major city getting trashed by a Earthquake or volcano, and flooding seems to be a rapidly increasing issue.

And it is correct that paying for the fire service shouldn't really be a burden born by the insured only. Add in too much stuff like that and increasing numbers of people will opt to self insure.

PolicyGuy:

They [st johns / Wellington free ambulance] don't want to be government owned but they do want government (Health and ACC) money. Hmm.

If I was Minister of Health - fortunately this will never be the case - I would write to St John and to Wellington Free Ambulance and tell them that

As from April 1st next year, there will be no Government money for their organisations
The Government will buy their ambulance operating businesses from them, either for $1 and the government will take over all their assets and liabilities, or at valuation but all the liabilities stay with the vendor - they can pick which option
Ambulance operations will be folded into Fire & Emergency NZ, whose budget will be adjusted upwards appropriately.
All ambulance staff other than management will be offered positions with FENZ under at least the same terms and conditions
FENZ will offer St John & WFA two-year management contracts to run their respective bits of the system under the governance of FENZ.
After the two-year integration period, St John & WFA management staff will be offered the opportunity to apply for equivalent positions in the new integrated FENZ structure.
The 'new' FENZ would be required to co-locate its control and dispatch operations with Police to provide an integrated Emergency First Response capability
I would also cease insurance funding for FENZ, fully funding it from taxes (general revenue and maybe rates) and re-establish it as a business unit of NEMA (the National Emergency Management Agency, formerly known as the Ministry for CDEM). NEMA might have to be busted out into a full Ministry again, the merged NEMA + FENZ organisation would be too large to fit in under DPMC.

Lol at a major change on april 1.

While absolutely, the likes of the ambulance services (incl air ambulance), fire service & coast guard should be run by the government, Doing so would be fairly massive, something that politicians generally shy away from.

They are exposed to substantial political risk - How appalling would it look if functional services were taken over by the government, and it ended up poorly functioning like Immigration NZ, or whatever your pick of disappointing government departments it.

There are also other key issues:

- Cost too the government would increase massively. With such services no longer being charities, the taxpayer would need to step up and cover their prior contribution. I think this is much more fair, but the public might not like the impact on the government books, or the extra tax take required to cover that.

- Expectation's would change massively. Potentially driving up costs a heap. With being government, tolerance of poor wages would drop substantially, and continuing reliance on a high number of volunteers would likely be called into question (yes goverment departments like DOC, use volenteer's, but not for such core stuff at the likes of FENZ etc do.)

- Level of service provided would become a political issue. Every article you see in the paper about slow ambulance response time's, shortage or fire ladder units in Auckland due to maintenance outage, Fire service cheeping out on tires and putting ones with low speed ratings on trucks etc, would immediately end up with questions to the minister of why such departments are either screwing up, or having to skimp due to poor funding.

Handle9

11401 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#2936767 1-Jul-2022 01:02

PolicyGuy:

They don't want to be government owned but they do want government (Health and ACC) money. Hmm.

It's called the Eden Park paradox.

plas

455 posts

Ultimate Geek

#2936890 1-Jul-2022 10:15

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.

Good chance I would be dead without Southern Cross, so well worth it for me. There was no way in hell the public system was going to do a colonoscopy(I was told I'm too young), after much arguing with doctors I only got referred to a specialist when I figured out my work plan would cover it. Even the specialist told me I was too young, but if insurance is going to cover it we can do it next week.

Quinny

887 posts

Ultimate Geek

Trusted

#2937076 1-Jul-2022 12:31

Southern Cross Ultracare 400. The most expensive plan. Been with them since the 80s so yeah the age numbers are headed to the dreaded 60 when I expect them to slam me from the current not insignificant $126 per week. On the other side I slam them with claims and they have never made money on me I reckon. Glasses, dentist, and 2 eye specialists (45k in eye surgery last year alone). While I work I will pay no matter as I have been with them so long there are zero exclusions. Was in hospital 5 days for gastric stuff and was able to have all followup done and paid super quick. If you can afford it then for me its a must

Wheelbarrow01

1726 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Chorus

#2941358 12-Jul-2022 23:39

Wheelbarrow01:
OldGeek:

trademeinsurance.co.nz (underwritten by Tower). I have 2 vehicles insured with them and premiums have not gone up despite claims.

I am currently with Tower. The quote from Trademe came in about $140 cheaper than my Tower renewal.

So far AMP is winning the battle, at $376 cheaper than Tower for exact same cover, agreed value, excess etc.

Next cheapest is State. Also have quotes from AA, Cove, Initio, AMI, Protecta. So far, none of them is as expensive as Tower - which is weird because Tower were the cheapest by some margin when I took the policy out 3 years ago. I guess Tower get people in the door with low prices but then wring every last dollar out of them through premium hikes and they just hope people don’t notice. Not the way to build customer loyalty IMO.

As painful as it can be, it’s well worth shopping around every year at renewal time. At least online quotes take some of the sting out of it. I remember the days when I had to spend hours on the phone to get quotes…

Just a post-script on this situation....

AMP emailed me my "quote" on 28 June, and it clearly stated it was valid for 30 days. I went into the email today and clicked the 'retrieve my quote' button as I decided to go ahead. Low and behold the price had magically risen by around $200 for no apparent reason. Same car, same benefits, same excess.

So I called AMP to query it. The guy on the end of the phone tapped some buttons then told me "oh yea, we had a price rise on July 1st". I queried why my emailed quote said it was valid until 28 July when in fact it is nothing of the sort. I swear I heard him shrug his shoulders through the phoneline before asking if I want to proceed. I politely advised him that they had gone from being the cheapest to one of the more expensive so no. Care factor zero.

This afternoon I switched to State. Still $266 cheaper than Tower, the excess is $100 less, and I rounded the agreed value up from $32,463 to $35k.

One more thing - I called Tower to cancel my policy with them and they of course tried to retain my business through looking for a "better deal". I advised the agent she was welcome to try. First she offered to lower the agreed value to lower the premium - I pointed out that is not a "better deal". She then offered to remove the rental car benefit. I advised her I never agreed to the rental car benefit when I signed up (I have several cars so would never have done so) and questioned why I was being charged for it at all. She said it was added to all policies a year or two ago. Neat - I was clearly caught out with fine print at last renewal time, also not a way to buy loyalty. Removing the rental car benefit dropped it down $80 or so dollars, so in the end not enough to persuade me to stay with them.

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