After housing costs (rent or mortgage repayments and rates), the typical New Zealander spends a significant amount of money on food, cars, power, and insurance.  At present, we’re all feeling the pressure of rising living costs, and managing expenses has become a top priority for many households.

According to the Insurance Council of New Zealand (ICNZ) – which represents the general insurance industry such as home, contents and vehicle – the current economic climate is filtering through to our insurance decisions.

“Many New Zealanders see the value of insurance to protect themselves and their property, with the uptake of residential insurance among the highest in the world at around 96%,” says ICNZ Communications Manager Patrick O’Meara.

So what can we do?  Our newest partner Tower wrote a recent article about this called  "How to Save Money on Your Insurance". 

We also wanted to explore this subject in more detail, so we invited the Tower team to join us on this month's  Goodtoknow webinar where we will be talking about house, car and contents Insurance and how making better informed decisions could save you money. Register here.

We've have published their article in full below, please have a read and let us know what you think in our comments section.

How to save money on your insurance 

Are you looking to save money on your insurance?  We understand how important it is to have the cover we need, should we need it. So, the secret of saving money on it, is making sure you know what you’re paying for and why.

Tower has boiled it down to four key things: your cover, risk, excess and the extras.

How much cover do you need?

Your insurance premium mostly depends on what you’re covering and how much cover you need. Whether it’s car, house or contents insurance, you need to feel confident that you have enough cover.

Having the right sum insured means you’ll have enough money if something unexpected happens. But if you have more cover than you need, it may mean you’re paying too much. It’s all about balance.

Check car sum insured: get a quote for your car with Tower and we'll let you know your car's estimated value based on Redbook's vehicle pricing valuation.

Check house sum insured: the Cordell Sum Sure calculator  can help you add up all the costs of building and specialists should something happen to your home.

Check contents sum insured: our contents calculator  can help estimate the value of everything you own, it’s better than guessing and may be more than you think.

What’s the risk?

When you get an insurance quote, one thing we look at is the risk of different assets. For instance, some car types are stolen more than others. Likewise, some houses have a higher chance of something happening to them. Such as the risk of flooding, or earthquake risk in some areas. Where the risk is higher, these places will naturally cost a bit more to insure. So it’s a good idea to get an insurance quote before you buy a property.

It also helps to take preventative measures to protect your assets. That way you don’t need to claim as often, saving you money on your excess.

How much excess?

Your excess is how much of a claim you pay. You can reduce your premium by choosing a higher excess. This would mean you’ll pay more at claim time, but you’ll pay less day-to-day. Be sure when choosing an excess, it is an amount you can easily afford to pay if you need to claim. 

What about the extras?

Many people have more than one insurance policy. With Tower, if you have three or more policies with them, you can save up to 20%^. It’s a big discount and one of the easiest ways to save money.

You may also be able to save at claim time if multiple policies are impacted in one incident. (Like a windstorm that may cause damage to your property and some of your contents).

With one event, one excess, you will only pay one excess (the highest applies) if you need to claim on multiple policies for a single incident at the same address.

It’s also worth reviewing when you pay. Most policies offer savings for people who buy annually rather than paying in instalments. You can even save by buying insurance online too.

^Multi-policy Discount Ts & Cs apply. 

Remember, as a HealthCarePlus Member, you can get up to 10% Off Selected Tower Insurance Policies for the term of the policy*. Just follow the "Find out more" link below to get a quote and see how much you can save.

(*) Terms and Conditions apply to HealthCarePlus Member-only offer. Read Tower Ts&Cs here.

Written by: Tower

To raise awareness of how important it is to have these conversations and get a will we have published new articles on the subject. Read more.