House & Contents Insurance

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What does House & Contents insurance cover?

Full House Replacement

Rebuild or repair your house and other structures up to your replacement value.

Personal Contents

Replace or repair lost or damaged belongings on a new-for-old basis.

Legal Liability

Cover legal costs if an accident injures someone, or causes damage to other's property.

Benefits of our House cover

  1. Temporary Accommodation

    $20,000 of alternative accommodation if your damaged house can’t be lived in.


  2. Reduced Glass Breakage Excess

    Reduced $250 excess for glass breakage claims.


  3. Excess-free Keys & Locks

    We’ll pay up to $1,000 if your keys are lost, stolen or copied with no excess.


  1. Hidden Gradual Damage

    $3,000 for gradual water damage from a hidden water or waste pipe.


  2. Excess-free Blocked Pipe

    Up to $500 to unblock underground water or sewage pipes, with no excess.


  3. Inflation Protection

    We’ll pay up to 10% over your sum insured if a disaster increases building costs.


Benefits of our Contents cover

  1. New-for-Old Replacement

    Contents are repaired or replaced to new condition, not depreciated.


  2. Contents in Transit or Storage

    Store contents temporarily away from home, in transit to a new house, or stored at vault.


  1. One Excess per event

    If both your house & contents are damaged (e.g. flood), you’ll only pay one excess.


  2. Personal Liability

    Up to $1m for damage you accidentally cause to other’s property in New Zealand.



How does initio compare?

We’ve done the hard yards so you don’t have to. See how our cover compares against other New Zealand insurers.

Policy Comparison Tool


Take control with the Initio Dashboard

  • Manage your insurance online

    Every customer gets access to their own personalised dashboard login.

  • No more lengthy phone calls

    Change your policy, lodge claims, add and cancel policies or get documents all online from your smart device or computer.

How are contents claims paid out?

Our policy is New-for-Old based cover, where most items are covered for brand new replacement.

New Repair or Replacement

Item is replaced or repaired to new condition.

You lost your iPhone 12. $2,000 is paid for a brand new replacement iPhone 12.

Present Value Repair or Replacement

Item is replaced or repaired to current value.

You lost your iPhone 12. Depreciated $1,000 is paid based on its second-hand value.

What is covered by contents insurance?

  1. Household Goods and Personal Items

    Smartphone, Engagement Ring, Tennis Racket & TV etc.


  2. Watercraft

    Surfboards, Kayaks, Dinghies & Portable Pools etc.


  1. Mobility Devices & Garden Appliances

    Ride-on Lawnmower, Golf Cart, Wheelchairs etc.


  2. Loose Floor Coverings

    Place Mats, Lounge Rug etc.



Why initio?

We use our technology to save you time and money.

Great Cover

We don't expect you to build your own policy, so we include the things that matter — bells and whistles too.

100% Online

We provide instant, online quotes for your house, and take the same approach to claims.

Support Focused

We're here to support you when tragedy strikes. Let us show you the way to better insurance.


You’re in safe hands

If disaster strikes, you’re in safe hands. Initio policies are underwritten by IAG New Zealand Ltd. Standard & Poor’s has given IAG a AA ‘Very Strong’ Financial Strength Rating.

Learn more about IAG’s financial strength rating

Common questions about house & contents insurance

You’ll need to choose a sum insured that’s enough to fully demolish and rebuild your house to its existing size (at today’s building costs).

If you’re unsure what the rebuild costs would be, we recommend you use the Cordell SumSure Calculator to help you get an estimate.

See here for our full guide on choosing your sum insured.

Visit our guide on how to switch your policy to initio.

First, make sure your new initio policy is in place. We let you place cover any day up to a month in advance.

You’ll then need to contact your insurance company and tell them to cancel your policy from the same date.

Don’t worry about getting the exact square metre size, because we only ask for an estimate.

We’ll pay to fully rebuild your house to its existing size, up to the sum insured you select. If your house suffers a total loss we’ll be able to use past records to find its exact size.

Therefore an estimate of the size is enough, while selecting an adequate sum insured is more important.

Our contents policy has limits on certain items such as jewellery and bicycles. You will need to specify items that are worth more than their limits to have full cover. To get the full list of items and their limits, see here.

You don’t need to specify other high values items such as laptops or furniture. These are automatically covered as part of the contents sum insured you select.

When you insure your house with Initio we instantly email a copy of the certificate to your email inbox. No delays — we use technology to save you time and money.

You can generate and amend the insurance certificate yourself at any time through your initio dashboard login.


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