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For our final topic, we’re looking at why having all of your insurance eggs in one basket is actually a good thing. Last year’s natural disasters brought numerous challenges for those who suffered losses. Managing multiple claims with different insurance providers would’ve been like trying to herd cats during a thunderstorm. You should never undervalue your time of peace of mind.

Consider streamlining your insurance

Having all your policies with one insurance provider simplifies your insurance management. It’s about making your life easier, reducing the jigsaw puzzle of policies to a single, manageable picture. Less time spent on paperwork means more time for…well, anything else.

Initio offers a range of insurance options to cover all aspects of your life. From home & contents to vehicle, landlord, and holiday home insurance, we have you covered. It’s like having a Swiss Army knife in your pocket, but for insurance. Fancy a quick quote? It couldn’t be simpler. In less than 10 seconds, you can see how we stack up against your current provider across the board.. And who knows? You might be pleasantly surprised by our competitive rates and the convenience of having all your insurance needs met under one roof.

Get a quote in seconds for our most popular insurance options:

House & Contents	Landlord	Vehicle	Holiday Home

Combining your insurance policies with the same provider is a smart move. You could save some cash, keep your insurance documentation tidy, and make claiming a breeze. Why not review your current insurance cover and see if bundling them might suit your needs better?

Here’s something to chew on: sticking with one provider for all your insurance needs means less hassle and fewer payments to juggle. As the old saying goes, time is money.

OTHER ARTICLES OF INTEREST

• One insurer = One headache

Initio, the first insuretech company in New Zealand to provide instant online house insurance, announces that it has given even more control to customers by launching another NZ first, Live Policy.

Live Policy means that customers can instantly modify or add to their insurance in an on-demand fashion without having to nervously wait for a confirmation.

The traditional process of getting and modifying insurance remains clunky and broken. When it launched in 2010 initio was transformative in giving homeowners and landlords the ability to effortlessly quote and purchase house insurance online and in real time through its website www.initio.co.nz. A process that takes less than five minutes without the need for paper applications or long winded phone calls.

Initio has today taken their market leading approach a step further. Through a personalised dashboard, Initio customers can now fully manage and modify their insurance policy instantly and whenever they want. This luxury does not exist with other insurers, who require the customer to make direct contact by phone or email to request the cover change.

Initio’s Live Policy means that the customer is in charge. Anytime, day or night, the customer can modify their insurance cover in a multitude of ways. This includes being able to increase or decrease the replacement value or excess of their own home, holiday home or rental property. Crucially, Live Policy also means that the customer can add to their cover an engagement ring they purchased on the weekend. Waiting till business hours on Monday to get insurance cover is now a thing of the past.

Since its inception initio has always used technology to push the boundaries of insurance for the benefit of the end user. “Insurance doesn’t need to be complicated” says initio CTO and co-founder Sam Brook. “Our overriding mission is to make insurance more approachable for homeowners and landlords, Live Policy is a significant digital milestone for both initio and insurance in New Zealand”.

Smart moves, part IV

In the fourth part of our chat with Graeme Fowler, we dig into risk – where it comes from, how to think about it as a property investor, and why you shouldn’t assume location alone will keep you safe.

Do natural disaster risks influence where you buy property?

“Not really. Any location can be hit. Look at Cyclone Gabrielle – it hit parts of the country hard, but none of my properties were affected. That wasn’t strategy – that was just luck.”

Graeme believes that chasing the “perfectly safe” location is unrealistic. Disasters don’t follow predictable maps, and if you’re insured properly, where your property is becomes less important than how it’s protected.

From initio: our quick quote tool, shows your property’s natural hazard profile upfront. 

Do you consider climate risk in your buying strategy?

“I’m aware of it, but I don’t let it stop me. What matters more is making sure you’re insured properly – because whether it’s a storm, fire, or flood, anything can happen.”

Graeme says the best protection isn’t where you buy – it’s what you’re covered for.

From initio: Our landlord policies include comprehensive cover for events like storms and floods. But having the right type of cover is only part of the picture. It’s just as important to make sure your sum insured is accurate. This is the maximum amount your property will be rebuilt for after a total loss, so it needs to reflect today’s building costs – not what it might’ve cost a few years ago. You can check and update your sum insured anytime through your online account. Not sure how to calculate your sum-insured? The Cordell Sum insured calculator is a great place to start.

So, how should landlords think about risk?

“You can’t avoid it entirely – so accept that some risk is part of the game. Just make sure it’s managed. For me, that means keeping insurance current and making sure I’ve got enough cover.”

Graeme suggests thinking about risk as part of the cost of doing business, not something to fear, but something to plan for.

From initio: Risk management is at the core of what insurance does – we carry the risk for you. That’s what you pay us for when you buy a policy: to take on the financial risk of the unexpected, so you don’t have to.

Location plays a big role in how risk is assessed. Some properties sit in higher-risk zones – floodplains, liquefaction-prone areas, or coastal regions exposed to storms. But risk isn’t just about the region. Two houses on the same street can have different risk profiles based on their floor level, drainage, slope, or construction.

That’s why we do the heavy lifting in the background. Our system automatically pulls up-to-date risk data from government hazard mapping, scientific assessments, and advisory updates. When these maps change, due to new modelling or recent weather events, we update our software accordingly.

Our quick quote tool includes these insights from the start, showing you a property’s natural hazard profile upfront. So you’re not just getting insurance – you’re getting a risk management tool that helps you make smarter decisions.

When you quote or renew your policy, we make it easy to check your current risk profile, coverage level, and any potential gaps. If something doesn’t look right, we’ll let you know.

What’s your advice to landlords who worry about “what if” scenarios?

“That’s exactly why you have insurance. Fires happen. Storms happen. And sometimes you get lucky – but sometimes you don’t. The point is being prepared either way.”

Coming up next in the Smart Moves Series:

Is self-insurance ever a smart move for landlords? (Spoiler: Graeme says no.)

Want the quick version?

We’ve pulled together the key takeaways from this series into our Landlord Insurance Fundamentals Guide—including a bite-sized version of our interview with Graeme Fowler. It’s a great place to start if you’re after a practical overview of insurance essentials for NZ landlords. Read it here

Related support articles:

• Calculate your sum insured
• Cordell Sum insured calculator
• Why insurance is non-negotiable. Smart moves, part I
• Smart strategies for premium, excess and payment timing. Smart moves, part II
• Inspections, paperwork and claim readiness: Smart moves, part III

A candid take on initio’s approach to you and your home

At initio we are ‘all-in’ on customer experience.  We ruthlessly pursue customer satisfaction with our technology, support and communications …. But only for a certain type of customer.  In short, we are not for everyone.   

Yes, we’re audacious enough to say: “Sorry, we can’t be your insurance provider” – at least not if it means compromising the ethos that underpins our brand, or transacting with you in a way that doesn’t celebrate the use of our tech.  We provide superior ease of insurance and customer service, but only to a specific kind of customer who appreciates and respects our ‘digital by default’ approach.  

Catering to the Modern, Digital-Savvy Customer

Our business model is laser-focused on a modern, self-reliant breed of customers. The digital age has dramatically reshaped the insurance industry, and initio remains at the forefront of this transformation. We are designed for customers who value autonomy, speed, and convenience, rather than the traditional, hands-on approach.

Customers who are comfortable transacting online, managing their property portfolios with digital tools, and who comprehend that competitive premiums and high-touch hand-holding services are often mutually exclusive, are our ideal clientele.  For these customers we are digital by default, and human when you need us. 

The Interplay of Technology and Affordability

“Why can’t you just start the policy for me over the phone”

“Why don’t you call me every year when my policy renews so we can have a chat about it”  

“Why can’t you just send me your bank account and I’ll transfer the premium funds”  

“Send me a quote”  

It’s a ‘no’ on all fronts.  The truth is, high-touch insurance services involve considerable operational costs – think travel, long-winded phone calls, time, and administration.   We’ve spent over 10 years building a digital platform that substitutes for these things; its frictionless insurance, that’s quote in one click, cover in 2 minutes, claim in an instant.  By utilising technology to automate many aspects of our services, we increase efficiency and are able to offer competitive pricing.  

Our system has been designed to suit a certain type of customer, and it’s not for everyone.  

This doesn’t mean we shirk our responsibility to our customers that embrace our technology.  Quite the contrary – we provide comprehensive digital and phone support, and abundant online resources to help.    

Why we decline to insure some houses

Sometimes we have to say no to insuring your house.  It’s not you, or your house, it’s simply the way we want to run our business and the rules we, and our insurer, have had to create to be able to offer our services long-term.  

It’s digital too:  The primary decision making on whether or not to insure your property is done by a smart tool we built called ‘Locatio’.  When you type in your address with initio, Locatio makes decisions about whether initio can provide cover by using things like council property data, flood maps, earthquake and land risk. 

In order to remain a sustainable and successful insurance provider we choose to focus on certain types of houses, and this means that there are some locations where we can’t provide cover, and certain risk exposures such as flood or land instability that are just not our bag.  

We are constantly updating our business and underwriting rules, so just because we say no today, doesn’t mean that it’s a no forever.   

You also need to know that we cannot sell you something that isn’t right for your situation either.  So if your property does not fit our product we’ll decline to provide cover, and we don’t mean any offence by this. 

The cost is the cost

A number of factors go into calculating the total cost of your home insurance, including location, age of the property, and other things like government-imposed levies.   Our award-winning insurance technology computes the insurance cost, and we rely on that to run our business.  The premiums need to be set at a level that allows the insurer the margins to continue to pay claims and reinsurance costs.  In short, the cost is the cost. 

Learn more about how the insurance risk component of your insurance cost is calculated 

It’s 100% your choice whether or not to accept the insurance cost we offer.  You can ring or email and challenge a cost but ultimately it’s out of our hands as the system has spoken.  You need to know though that we work incredibly hard to maintain competitive premiums for our customers.  We do this by continually investing in our technology for efficient processes, negotiations with our insurer, constantly refining the rules that determine how risky our portfolio of houses is (ultimately the more aggregated risk we take on, the bigger our premium pool needs to be).  

Our efforts to keep premiums competitive have been confirmed by feedback from our customers and also by financial resource websites like Moneyhub.  

Source:  Moneyhub 

 It’s simply not possible to be the most competitive all of the time, and we implore our customers to take a long and holistic view of their insurance that takes account of things like support (can you get you easily get ahold of your insurer), claims responsiveness, ease of use, technology and overall confidence in your provider.

It’s worth bearing in mind that not all policies are built the same, so just comparing price vs price doesn’t quite cover it. We highly recommend using our comparison tool if you want to see how we stack up when you also take the policies into consideration.  

An Unapologetic Philosophy

Our philosophy is blunt but honest: “We are not for everyone”.  Our model isn’t all things to all people, and that’s intentional. We’re looking for customers who align with our ethos – those who want a superior digital service.  

While we understand some may expect more traditional customer service methods, we respectfully suggest they may be happier elsewhere. This is not a dismissal, but a candid admission that our service model may not suit everyone’s expectations.

In sum up, initio is unyieldingly committed to delivering our unique brand of customer experience, one that is unabashedly shaped by the needs of modern, digital-savvy customers. While our approach may not resonate with everyone, we are firm in our refusal to compromise on the affordability and efficiency that our model provides.

To our customers who find value in what we offer, we welcome you wholeheartedly. To those who don’t, we don’t hesitate to say: “We are not for you” And that’s how we maintain the balance that allows us to continue delivering what we believe is the optimal blend of service and affordability in today’s market… all driven by our technology.

We’re proud to share that initio has been recognised by MoneyHub as their Favourite Home Insurance Quote Platform. It’s an honour to be featured by one of New Zealand’s most trusted consumer platforms, known for cutting through the noise and helping Kiwis make confident financial decisions.

In a market where “best” is rarely clear-cut, MoneyHub doesn’t hand out praise lightly. Their awards focus on innovation, value, and customer benefit, not just big marketing budgets. That’s why we’re especially proud they’ve recognised initio for what truly sets us apart: our technology and market-leading customer service.

Real quotes, really fast

According to MoneyHub, initio’s platform delivers “a high-quality insurability assessment and property premium in under six seconds.” That means when someone’s looking to insure their home, they don’t get vague pricing or hoops to jump through – they get a tailored result, instantly.

And this isn’t by accident. Our quoting engine is the result of years of dedicated development. We’ve built the tech in-house, from the ground up, to be the fastest, smartest and most accurate in the industry. Every part of it is designed with the customer in mind, whether it’s pulling property data, calculating risks, or accounting for tricky scenarios like flood zones or multi-dwelling sites.

The gold standard in quoting

While some providers give a rough estimate or send your details to a call centre, initio delivers a real quote in real-time. No salespeople, no follow-up calls – just clarity and speed. It’s why landlords and homeowners alike rate our quoting platform as the most seamless and transparent in the market.

As MoneyHub puts it:

“The cyclone and flood devastation in early 2023 highlights the need for insurers to prioritise technology for claims and risk-pricing… Initio is future-focused and propelling the industry forward.”

We couldn’t have said it better ourselves. Because great insurance starts with great tech – and at initio, we’ve made that our mission.

Try our award winning quick quote out for yourself:
Quick House Insurance Quote

Related articles:

• Technology you can trust

Auckland, New Zealand – Initio media release 

New tenancy legislation comes in effect today under the Residential Tenancies Amendment Act 2019 (RTAA). Among other things, the RTAA attempts to clarify liability for property damage between tenants and landlords.

As a specialist online landlord property insurance provider, Initio handles landlord property damage claims on a daily basis. Initio asserts the RTAA’s approach to property damage is misconstrued, creating uncertainty for both landlords and tenants.

Intention of the act

For property damage, the Residential Tenancies Amendment Act, seeks to:

1. Make tenants liable for ‘careless damage’ caused to the rental property; but
2. Allow tenants to share in and receive protection from the landlord’s insurance policy; and
3. Limit tenant liability for careless damage to the amount of the landlord’s insurance policy excess or 4 weeks rent (whichever is less).
4. Re-open the ability for the landlord to recover against the tenant for damage, albeit on a very limited basis.

Practical reality of property damage

Determining who pays for the cost, or insurance excess, of property damage is going to lead to disagreements between landlords and tenants.

“Many landlords have misunderstood the changes to the RTA and believe that the tenant will be responsible for the insurance excess on all types of claims,” said Rene Swindley, Initio CEO.

“The reality is that the tenant is only responsible for the excess on careless damage claims, which are uncommon. Over the last 12 months only 7% of our claims would be considered careless, meaning that for the remaining 93% it is the landlord who will be funding the insurance excess.”

The type of damage determines who pays

Initio has analysed its last 12 months of claims and determined that there are five broad ways a rental property can suffer damage:

1. Damage (g. storm damage to the roof, or a leaking pipe). These account for 55% of Initio’s rental property claims. If the landlord is insured, the landlord pays the excess.
2. Accidental damage by tenant (e.g. tenant slips and spills a glass of red wine on the carpet). This loss type accounts for 14% of initio claims. If insured, the landlord pays the excess for this damage.
3. Careless damage by tenant (e.g. tenant leaves a pot cooking on the stove and goes to bed). Only 7% of initio claims are considered careless, meaning that the tenant is rarely responsible for the excess.
4. Intentional damage by tenant (e.g. tenant smashes holes in a wall, meth contamination). Due to meth still dominating this damage type, 16% of initio claims are considered intentional. Landlords can obtain insurance for this type of damage. A landlord or their insurer can hold a tenant fully liable for this type of damage, but historically it is a difficult and lengthy process recovering costs (or an excess) from the tenant for intentional damage.
5. Damage by a third party (e.g. a third-party vehicle impacts the fence). Only 8% of initio claims fall into this category. The landlord is responsible for the excess, but the landlord’s insurer has the right to recover the excess from the third party for the benefit of the landlord.

Accidental or careless? Arguments to come

While the RTAA assumes that the landlord and tenant will agree on the damage, there are many subjective damage scenarios where this may be unclear. For example, a glass of wine dropped on the carpet or hot pot burn on the kitchen bench can be construed as either ‘careless’ or ‘accidental’. As the classification of the damage has financial implications to tenant and landlord alike, it is inevitable that disagreement will arise.

Given that the cause of the damage determines who pays, Initio expects disagreements between landlords and tenants as to responsibility. If the landlord and tenant cannot agree on the type of damage the parties can apply to the Tenancy Tribunal for the mater to be resolved.

Change of insurance excess

Initio is a digital insurer that allows landlords to make on-demand policy changes.

“As Initio’s digital insurance offering makes it so easy for landlords to change an excess our technology has become a landlord sentiment barometer,” said Initio CEO Rene Swindley.

Initio does not recommend that landlords increase excesses as a reaction to the RTAA, as the higher excess will apply to all claims, not just the rare situation in which the tenant can be held responsible for payment.  Swindley says that initio is watching its ‘barometer’ with interest.

When deciding on a policy excess, landlords need to think about the insurance excess in terms of both their own and their tenants’ ability to fund and cope with the excess. Given that it is a requirement for the landlord to provide details of insurance to a tenant, it’s clear that the level of insurance excess will form part of a tenant’s decision to rent a property.

In coming weeks as real-life damage to rental properties meets the new RTA, it remains to be seen how much tension is put on the landlord-tenant relationship.

About Initio

Initio is a New Zealand based online property insurance provider. Founded in 2011 by a couple of Kiwis, Initio set out to change the broken insurance industry by using technology to put control back into the hands of the customer.

Covering landlord insurance, short-term holiday rentals and home & contents, Initio specialises in tailored online property insurance, including an all-in-one landlord insurance with loss of rent, and cover for damage by the tenant.

Initio’s market-leading policies can be quoted, bought and amended online – all in an instant. Initio is underwritten by NZI, a business division of IAG New Zealand Limited.

For more information on landlord insurance see https://initio.co.nz/landlord-insurance/

Covering yourself for an unexpected event that leads to damage and financial loss is exactly what insurance is for. For house and contents insurance, you are most likely to think of your typical risks that might include fire, property flooding or theft of contents. However, insurance goes much further the ‘usual’ losses.

At initio we come across our fair share of unusual claims. As part of our ‘2019 in Review’ we go over our top 5 most unexpected claims – with a few honourable mentions. We are calling this the ‘Annual Initio Claims Awards’

Expect the Unexpected?

#1.   Runaway Trailer

Sometimes damage can come from something outside of your control and your property. In late 2019, an initio customer in Te Awamutu was taken by surprise by a runaway trailer.   Concrete was being laid at the building site next door and one the contractors loaded trailers became unhitched. The trailer was sent rolling down the hill and ended its journey by colliding the corner of our customers house and garage door.

This resulted in significant damage to the interior lining, exterior cladding and the garage door.  Lucky for the insured their vehicles were not parked in the garage at the time, however a shelving unit and set of golf clubs were also destroyed.  Saturday golf was put on hold unfortunately.

Total claim cost $19,187.  In this instance, the concrete layers public liability insurer was pursued for the costs of this claim.

# 2.  Colouring-in competition 

When a customer rented their holiday home to short term guests they were not counting on their TV taking part in a kids colouring competition.   The guest’s toddler thought they would hone their colouring in skills on the large flatscreen TV.

The artistic crayon drawings were cleaned off but the hard crayons left permanent scratches across the screen that could not be removed.  A claim was made under their ‘landlord-holiday home contents’ which meant that the homeowner was able to replace their TV.

#3 .  The Phantom Bather

An initio client with a multi-unit rental property was expecting it to be unoccupied for eleven days between tenancies.  Two days into the property being untenanted, they received a call from their neighbour to say that there was water coming out of the property.  It appeared an intruder had entered the property gone up the stairs and decided to run a bath.

Extensive water damage included saturated carpet upstairs that then seeped through the floor to downstairs. The ceiling in the kitchen and dining room downstairs collapsed, and significant water damage and clean-up was required through the property.

While we don’t know what the motives were for running the bath, we know that the landlord was happy to have an initio landlord insurance policy come to the rescue.  With further costs still to come in the claim cost of repairs so far exceeds $32,000.  

#4 .  Rampant Puppies

After a tenancy had ended at an initio rental property early in 2019, an initio client lodged a claim for damage to the underfloor insulation. When repairers investigated the cause of loss, it appeared that the previous tenants family of puppies had found their way under the house, and shredded the flooring insulation from below.

Unlike many domestic insurance policies in New Zealand, the initio landlord insurance policy does not exclude damage caused by pets.  After the landlord’s excess, Initio paid out $2,225.16 to repair and reinstate the insulation.

#5.  Clumsy Chopping Board

While renting a holiday home, the guests popped down the road only to return to water running out the front door.  They certainly didn’t expect to find water everywhere, a swelling to the kitchen, kitchen bench, cupboards, walls and floor.

It turns out that while they were out of the house a bread chopping board fell from its stand and landed on the sink tap. Not only did this turn the tap on, the awkward way it landed meant it also redirected the water away from the sink, running down the bread board and into the kitchen cabinets.

The aftermath damage resulted in water damage to the kitchen structures, damage to electrical components, and loss of rent payments as the sodden kitchen meant the property could no longer be rented.  Total repairs amounted to $21,151.38 and are covered as sudden accidental water damage under the customers initio holiday home policy.

2019’s Honourable Vehicle v House Mentions

From AirBnB guests throwing a party to lightning strikes – we have had some interesting ‘honourable mentions’ lodged throughout the year.

Six claims were lodged with initio in 2019 for vehicle damage to properties – where a member of the public lost control of their vehicle and damaged our customers houses.

Three were involved in a police chase, whilst a further two were caused at the hands of drunk drivers.

Drivers who are responsible for damage caused are liable to cover the costs of repair. However in reality it’s difficult to get those responsible to accept liability (especially where it involves a police chase or drunk driving).  Regardless of the driver accepting responsibility or being insured themselves (not that they would have insurance if drunk or in a police chase) initio provides cover for the damage caused to the property.  We then pursue the driver.

The average claim for vehicle house damage in 2019 was $4,761.

‘Expect the Unexpected’ – You never know what could happen to your property. This is why it’s best to make sure you are covered for such unexpected and unusual events.

For more information on insuring different types see our insurance covers designed specifically for:

Home Insurance – for your own home, and contents.
Holiday Home Insurance – for the bach and for holiday homes that are also rented out (eg Bookabach, AirBnB)
Landlord Insurance – all in one house and landlord insurance, including loss of rents, malicious damage & more.

This week, law changes to the Residential Tenancies legislation is set to strengthen renter’s rights. It aims to transition a landlord’s rental house into a tenant’s home.  

Looking specifically at landlord insurance, the change that will have the most ramifications on landlord insurance is the removal of no-cause evictions. Essentially, it will be more difficult for landlord’s to remove bad tenants and from a risk management perspective this is not a good thing. Other changes to the legislation such as limiting rent increases, and banning rent bidding are unlikely to have a direct impact on landlord insurance.

Landlord insurance provides cover for intentional damage by tenants. If troublesome tenants are harder to remove then landlord insurers will consider that there is a higher risk that the tenant will cause damage to the property. It remains to be seen but this could lead to an increase in the value of deliberate damage insurance claims. Working out how and when the damage occurred could be further protracted when there is a tenant that is unwilling to co-operate and cannot be removed from the property. It has always been about working with the landlord, the tenant, and the property manager (if applicable) and this will not change when it comes to insurance.

While tenant damage could increase under the new rules, the legislation changes could in fact improve risk management and reduce the incidence of damage. Our view is that with bad tenants being hard to evict, it will mean that landlords increase their scrutiny during tenant selection. So, ultimately tenants with a poor record and lack of supporting references may find it harder to get rent a property, which would filter out bad tenants and lead to lower claims payouts for insurers.

The ultimate outcome of the law changes is difficult to predict. It is unlikely that insurers will make any adjustments to premiums or policy conditions as a result of the reforms.

The bulk of the legislative changes are set to be put into practice in early 2021. We expect that it will take at least 12 months before we see any outcomes or trends on claims.

About Initio

Initio is a New Zealand-based online house insurance provider.  Founded in 2011 by a couple of Kiwis, Initio set out to change the broken insurance industry by using technology to put control back into the hands of the customer.

Covering landlord insurance, short-term holiday rentals and home and contents, Initio specialises in tailored online property insurance, including an all-in-one landlord insurance with built-in cover for loss of rent and damage by the tenant.

Having completed over 35,000 automated insurance transactions, Initio’s market-leading policies can be quoted, bought and amended online – all in an instant.

Initio is underwritten by NZI, a business division of IAG New Zealand Limited.

Don’t fall for insurers making you think that you can buy their insurance online.

Many of them advertise [and have google results] for online insurance, buy rental insurance online etc.  A customer is lead to believe that he/she can get insurance online but is usually presented with the following:

“One of our insurance consultants will be in touch to provide you with a rental house insurance quote….”

“Online house insurance… Please fill in your details below…Please select what time you would like to be contacted”.   – the worst thing about this is that you have to give them your details before you even get a price (initio doesn’t ask you for your details until you want the insurance)

“Call … now on 0800… for a quote”

Talking to someone on the phone completed insurance documentation by mail defeats the whole purpose of being online.

The process of talking to someone on the phone and filling in physical forms is inefficient and likely costs you more in premium.  Stick to the real online providers – Initio Insurance.

Rest assured that you CAN actually purchase AND manage your insurance online with initio.

While it might be tempting to find the cheapest insurance for each of your insurance policies, it may not be worth it in the long run. Auckland Anniversary Weekend flooding followed by Cyclone Gabrielle in 2023 showed us the worst-case scenario; some families lost everything and are still struggling to navigate their way through the aftermath. Having multiple insurance providers can make it tough to claim. If your home, contents, and car are all insured with different providers, that’s three claims to lodge, three claims handlers to follow up, and three call centres to wait on hold with.  While you may have saved $10 or even $100, the cost of your sanity is worth so much more. 

It’s not worth the hassle, so why not put down the panadol and consider getting comprehensive coverage for everything with one provider?

Streamlined Claims Process

If you accidentally crash your own car into your own house and knock the TV off the wall, dealing with multiple insurers can be a hassle. It could take a lot of time and effort to make individual claims for each item. By having all your insurance with one provider, you can claim against all affected policies at once (and potentially pay only one excess*). Consider a provider with online claim submission to save time and avoid phone calls to call centres.

How Quickly are Claims Processed?

When it comes time to make a claim, is your insurer easy to deal with? Or do they give their customers the run-around? Some of the giants in the insurance industry can make their customers jump through hoops when it comes to paying out claims. Look for a provider who has a reputation for paying claims, and see if they offer any real-life reviews from customers who have claimed. 

Everything in One Place

With all your policies in one place, it’s easier to find important information when you need it. When stress levels are high, because something has happened to your property, you’ll be relieved that all your important insurance information is easy to find. If your insurer still sends you documentation via the mail, keep your documents safe by scanning or taking photos and storing them in the cloud, so you can still access them if your home is destroyed by fire or flood.  Better yet, choose an insurer with an online dashboard for even easier access.

What do you actually need?

Think about what kind of coverage suits your needs and do your research. It may be tempting to go with a policy suggested by your bank or mortgage broker – these plans are marketed to you as a way to save time and have everything in one place. But there’s a chance you might end up paying above-market rates and you could miss out on benefits available with other insurance policies. It might be easier to hand the reins over to someone else to sort it for you, but it really pays to look around and compare your options.

How do the policies stack up?

While on the subject of policies, does the cheapest policy give you the same amount of cover as one that costs a little more?  You could spend hours trawling through the different insurance websites and looking up their individual policies. Or, save your time (and possibly sanity) by using the comparison tool created by initio. There are two versions available; house for those who own and live in their own property and landlord for those with rentals.  

What are the reviews like?

Choosing an insurance provider with a great reputation might just be worth more to you in terms of time and stress levels – as opposed to saving a few dollars each month. After all, cheaper definitely doesn’t always mean better.

Isn’t it Risky To Have All Your Insurance Eggs in One Basket?

What if for some reason your insurance provider goes under and couldn’t afford to pay? The reality is that most people will be insured across multiple IAG platforms. 

IAG, the oldest and largest general insurer in New Zealand, underwrites multiple insurance platforms including initio, NZI, State, and AMI. In fact, at the request of the government, IAG acquired AMI after it faced financial difficulties due to the Christchurch earthquakes. Many people in New Zealand hold insurance policies across various IAG platforms, but this does not necessarily spread the risk, as they are all underwritten by the same provider.

Your direct insurance provider would not fail due to an excessive number of claims, as it is not the end insurer. Insurance companies typically have reinsurance in place to manage large losses and catastrophe claims, as part of their risk management strategy.

In Summary

Bundling multiple insurance policies with the same insurer can save you money, make managing your coverage easier, and streamline the claims process. Consider reviewing your insurance portfolio and see if bundling makes sense for you. 

A final point to remember, when one business is handling all of your insurance policies, that’s less time you’ll spend sorting through and paying each policy. And as they say: Time is money.

*Under specific circumstances (in this example, it would be the highest excess for the property affected)