Rising Insurance Costs and Renewals

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Forums › Finance and wealth management › Rising Insurance Costs and Renewals

Eva888

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#320299 29-Jul-2025 11:08

I am trying to get quotes for home insurance in case I can get a better deal.

Am with State Insurance. My contents insurance is due 4 months before the house insurance. I call State to ask them what my home premium will be in 4 months when it’s due. They can’t tell me what I will be charged until October, one month before it’s due.

Ok so can you give me a new quote starting in August. Yes they can. Problem is I won’t know if the quote will be more or less than what they plan to charge in November. The idea was to have the two premiums starting at the same time.

How are you meant to do comparisons if the insurance company can’t tell you what your insurance premium will be three months down the track and I suspect this is planned.

I have split contents separate from House so there is the option of removing it completely if required. Have only made two claims in twenty years.

All companies use the Cordells assessment for insurance but what I note is let’s say your CV is 1 mil and Cordells is similar, shouldn’t insurance quote be based on only the building portion and not the land since land is not going to burn down.

Ruminating here. Are we over insuring based on Cordells assessment used? As soon as you type in your address on Insurance sites it auto fills in the form at the CV so that’s what you are quoted on. Or is it best to insure for the CV amount so that you can buy elsewhere if it burns down and then sell the land that’s left.

Does anyone have a broker they can recommend and are they cheaper. Is there a smart comparison tool I can use?

As for Council Rates in Wellington that have risen to exorbitant. With Rates and Insurance you need about 12-15k a year. I pity anyone with a mortgage in Wellington. No wonder people are leaving for other cities.

timmmay

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#3397984 29-Jul-2025 11:42

Noting similar thread here. On the one occasional I looked a brokers they cost more.

With most insurance policies you can cancel the policy and get a pro-rata refund at any point during the policy, though there are probably conditions. Suggest you set up the new policy first.

snj

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#3398016 29-Jul-2025 12:31

I think most insurance providers will only provide quotes about 2 months ahead of time max. I was helping my mum with insurance over the weekend and I think AA for instance the start date couldn't be beyond end of August or September (can't remember which).

Couple of things to note ahead of time, IAG changed all their policies recently, was the case for AMI (all replacement policies of new types) and looking at State's website, same there. They've got guides of what has changed, (for State they're under https://www.state.co.nz/documents) but there are a couple of things that they aren't very clear on as far as the changes go (not applicable in your case, but for Car insurance, they didn't put in their Car changes document that they were introducing an Unnamed driver additional excess, used to be $0, I think it's something like $800-$1000). So, read the documents very carefully if you think you'll stay with State, I'm not sure if there are other unannounced changes.

It's going to be different because you've said Wellington, but AA Insurance (Vero) do seem more reasonable premiums wise in Auckland, I think House & Contents worked out cheaper than House alone from AMI.

Best you can do at the moment probably is do a draft quote with State, AA, whomever else with the start date as far away as they'll allow, and compare now, and keep those details noted for when it comes to renewal, then requote and make sure policy documents haven't changed/etc. You'll be ahead of the preparation, but you won't know the final cost until it's actually time to renew.

Insurance is risk based, and they're always sorting our reinsurances and updating risks so they don't want to hold the can for what might turn out to be an extremely risky (for them) quote for too long, who knows what'll change the risk in the meantime (today's weather for instance).

Eva888

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#3398090 29-Jul-2025 17:39

Yes I saw the old thread but it was locked. Broker I tried once was useless. Didn’t even bother to come back to me except for the cars which I ended up insuring myself for a lot cheaper than Sate through Toyota and scoring a roadside assist included.

@snj Thanks I didn’t realise that all insurances were doing this. State especially has made it really difficult to make comparisons and what was included before now requires you to add as an extra in many cases. I would rather have an all inclusive policy than mucking around with adding and subtracting and it’s not as if they are any cheaper, they just provide you with less.

Still waiting for their quote. House is an older Lockwood so solid timber which would be pricey to ever fully replace.

Handle9

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#3398112 29-Jul-2025 21:14

Eva888:

How are you meant to do comparisons if the insurance company can’t tell you what your insurance premium will be three months down the track and I suspect this is planned.

No one is buying insurance 3 months in advance so it's not surprising they don't do quotes with that sort of validity.

Just shop around for home and contents now or in 3 months time. You can cancel a policy early so it really doesn't matter.

Ragnor

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#3398137 30-Jul-2025 00:03

Eva888:

Ruminating here. Are we over insuring based on Cordells assessment used? As soon as you type in your address on Insurance sites it auto fills in the form at the CV so that’s what you are quoted on. Or is it best to insure for the CV amount so that you can buy elsewhere if it burns down and then sell the land that’s left.

I've used the core logic / cordell's tool linked from ASB and AA Insurance.

It has never used my CV as an input, it uses council data for the age, construction and m2 of the building/house, then you customise/correct it from there.

Given rising building costs I usually worry it's under estimated rather than over.

cddt

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#3398148 30-Jul-2025 07:53

Eva888:

Ruminating here. Are we over insuring based on Cordells assessment used? As soon as you type in your address on Insurance sites it auto fills in the form at the CV so that’s what you are quoted on. Or is it best to insure for the CV amount so that you can buy elsewhere if it burns down and then sell the land that’s left.

Insure for what it will cost you to rebuild, not forgetting to include the cost of removing and disposing of the damaged structure.

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wellygary

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#3401112 8-Aug-2025 15:53

Anyone got any visibility on what prices are doing this year,

We're not due to renew until October, but the last couple of years have been pretty brutal in terms of price increases,

OTOH, Car insurance just renewed and it fell 14%,
(guess they have finished dealing with the thousands of cars that got drowned in the Auckland Floods and Gabrielle a couple of years ago)..

Eva888

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#3401125 8-Aug-2025 16:23

wellygary:

Anyone got any visibility on what prices are doing this year,

We're not due to renew until October, but the last couple of years have been pretty brutal in terms of price increases,

OTOH, Car insurance just renewed and it fell 14%,
(guess they have finished dealing with the thousands of cars that got drowned in the Auckland Floods and Gabrielle a couple of years ago)..

Be aware that the first thing they tell you is how much your insurance has dropped and then later in the finer print you will see it’s because they have dropped the agreed value by quite a bit. A lot of people complaining about this.

jarledb

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#3401132 8-Aug-2025 16:42

Eva888:

Be aware that the first thing they tell you is how much your insurance has dropped and then later in the finer print you will see it’s because they have dropped the agreed value by quite a bit. A lot of people complaining about this.

Good point, but a car typically depreciates in value year over year.

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heavenlywild

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#3401134 8-Aug-2025 16:44

Loyalty used to mean something.

These days it counts for nothing when it comes to insurance companies. So jump ship yearly, it is worth the time.

Behodar

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#3401138 8-Aug-2025 16:57

jarledb:

Good point, but a car typically depreciates in value year over year.

Yep, so it annoyed me when my renewal increased last year. However, competitors were more expensive!

Mine's due for renewal in about six weeks so hopefully it'll be down to a more reasonable price.

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Handle9

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#3401141 8-Aug-2025 17:01

Eva888:

wellygary:

Anyone got any visibility on what prices are doing this year,

We're not due to renew until October, but the last couple of years have been pretty brutal in terms of price increases,

OTOH, Car insurance just renewed and it fell 14%,
(guess they have finished dealing with the thousands of cars that got drowned in the Auckland Floods and Gabrielle a couple of years ago)..

Be aware that the first thing they tell you is how much your insurance has dropped and then later in the finer print you will see it’s because they have dropped the agreed value by quite a bit. A lot of people complaining about this.

The value of the car insured normally doesn’t have a proportional impact on the premium. The risk is mostly what you will drive into.

vexxxboy

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#3401144 8-Aug-2025 17:17

my house coverage went down a whole $36 a year ,but at least it wasnt an increase

Common sense is not as common as you think.