About Cornerstone Insurance

Cornerstone Insurance Limited is a licensed financial advice provider in Auckland (FSPR 1004360), operating under the licence held by NZ Financial Services Group Limited (FSP286965). We arrange personal insurance — life, health, trauma, income protection, total and permanent disablement and mortgage protection — for families across New Zealand, in English and Mandarin.

We are appointed with five insurers: Partners Life, Chubb Life, AIA, Asteron Life and nib. That lets us put their wordings and premiums side by side for each client rather than fit everyone to one company’s products. Our advisers are paid commission by the insurer that issues the policy; clients are not charged a separate fee for advice, applications, annual reviews or claims.

What we do for a client

The work starts before any product comes up, with a needs analysis: understanding the household as it stands and the obligations it carries, establishing how far any existing cover reaches and where it falls short, and from that determining which types of cover are required and what each sum insured should be.

Then we compare. There is no insurer that is simply the best; each has its strengths, and the comparison is won or lost on a handful of clauses rather than on the length of the brochure. On health cover, for example, what actually separates the products is the annual limit on non-Pharmac drugs and whether that limit is restricted to cancer; whether you may elect overseas treatment; when the excess is triggered and how much it is; whether you can use any private specialist and hospital or only an approved list; and which procedures carry a stand-down. Surgical limits, maternity benefits and loyalty bonuses differ too, but rarely in ways that decide anything.

Most claims are paid without difficulty — insurers here do not make their money by refusing them. The ones that are declined almost always come back to the health disclosure made at application. People assume that a condition never treated in New Zealand need not be mentioned, but a GP records what you tell them in your medical notes, and the insurer can request those notes at claim time. Wording a disclosure so that it is both accurate and does not invite an exclusion it need not carry takes judgement, so we work through the questionnaire with the client rather than handing it over to fill in alone.

Once the policy is in force we review it every year — incomes change, mortgages get paid off, families grow. At claim time we prepare the evidence, lodge it and follow it through; if a claim is declined, we argue it against the wording and the clinical notes. Nobody who is unwell has the energy to negotiate with a claims assessor, and few people have the technical footing to do it well. None of this is charged to the client; our income is the commission paid by the insurer.

Who we are

Licensed insurance advisers in New Zealand, NZBN 9429049123425 · FSP1004360. The current team is on the team page, and the full statutory disclosure (fees, commissions, complaints process, our duties under the Financial Markets Conduct Act) is on the disclosure page.

Where we are

Based in Auckland, New Zealand, serving clients throughout the country by phone, video and e-signature. Contact details are here.