Our services
Cornerstone Insurance specialises in personal insurance and holds agency agreements with five insurers — Partners Life, Chubb Life, AIA, Asteron Life and nib — so wordings and premiums can be compared side by side for the same requirement.
Life cover
Pays a lump sum to the beneficiaries you nominate on death, or on diagnosis of a terminal illness. The sum insured is usually calculated as the mortgage balance, plus the household’s living and education costs until the children are financially independent, less the assets you could already draw on. Cover between $50,000 and $2 million is the common range.
Alongside the sum, the term and the premium structure have to be settled. Stepped premiums rise with age — cheaper at the start, expensive to hold for decades. Level premiums stay fixed for an agreed period — higher initially, better suited to long-term cover. The cheapest policy at 35 is frequently the most expensive one at 55, so the structure is planned against how long the cover is actually needed.
Health cover
Covers private surgery, hospital admission, specialist consultations and major diagnostic imaging such as MRI and CT, with your own choice of surgeon and hospital and no public waiting list. Most households insure as a family; adding dependent children is comparatively inexpensive.
The material differences between insurers sit in four places: the annual limit and conditions on non-Pharmac drugs, what triggers overseas treatment and the cap that applies, whether specialist consultations and diagnostics are base cover or a paid add-on, and how the excess and any co-payment are calculated. We re-check the current wordings each year; the latest comparison is on the blog.
Trauma cover
Pays a lump sum on diagnosis of a condition listed in the policy, with no restriction on how the money is used — treatment the health policy excludes, the income gap while you are off work, or fixed costs during recovery. Wordings typically list forty or more conditions, though cancer, heart attack and stroke account for most claims.
What decides a claim is the definition, not the length of the list. Insurers differ materially on early-stage diagnoses — carcinoma in situ, low-grade prostate cancer — and on partial payment percentages, and this is where claims are most often disputed, so the definitions themselves are compared clause by clause.
Income protection
Pays a monthly benefit while illness or injury prevents you working in your own occupation, generally capped at 75% of pre-tax income. Wait periods run from four weeks to two years, and benefit periods from two years to five years or to age 65. Accidents are covered by ACC; this policy carries the illness and disablement exposure that falls outside it.
The wait period is the main lever on premium — the longer it is, the cheaper the cover — and how long you can carry depends on emergency savings, sick leave and other household income. Self-employed clients and company shareholders also choose between agreed value and indemnity cover, which determines how income must be evidenced at claim time.
Total and permanent disablement (TPD)
Pays a lump sum where illness or injury permanently removes the ability to work. It complements income protection rather than replacing it: the monthly benefit covers day-to-day cash flow, while the lump sum meets the large one-off costs a monthly payment never catches up with — home modification, a suitable vehicle, long-term care.
The definition of “unable to work” sets the claim threshold. Own occupation pays where you cannot perform the job you held when cover was placed; any occupation requires that you cannot perform any work you are reasonably suited to. The premium difference is significant, and we state which definition a recommendation uses and what an upgrade costs.
Mortgage protection
Sum insured and term track the mortgage balance: a monthly benefit covers the repayments while you cannot work, or a lump sum clears the balance on death or total disablement. Because the benefit is measured against the loan rather than personal income, underwriting and financial evidence requirements are usually lighter than for income protection, and the monthly benefit can be received alongside ACC.
Whether it is needed on top of life cover and income protection depends on how those two are sized. In some cases a larger life sum insured covers the same exposure at a lower total premium; both structures are costed and compared before a recommendation is made.
Side by side
| Cover | Pays when | How it pays | What it's for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Life | Death, or terminal illness | Lump sum | Mortgage and the family's living costs |
| Health | Private treatment is needed | Reimburses the bills | Skipping the public waiting list |
| Trauma | Diagnosis of a listed condition | Lump sum | Treatment and time off, your choice |
| Income protection | Illness or injury stops you working | Monthly, after a wait period | Replacing the pay cheque |
| TPD | Permanently unable to work | Lump sum | One-off costs of a changed life |
| Mortgage protection | Can't work, or death / disablement | Monthly repayments or lump sum | Keeping the house |
So how should insurance be bought?
Buying insurance is not picking a product; it starts with your own situation. The same health policy suits a child, a young single earner, a household with both parents and grandparents to support, and a smoker in completely different structures and sums insured — and the wording that is best value for one of them can be the worst for another. So we take the wordings, the scope of cover and the premiums apart item by item, then build a plan around your household and your budget, rather than putting everyone into whichever product is easiest to sell.
The other half of the answer comes after the policy is in force. A claim is where an adviser is really tested: what evidence to assemble, which clause to argue when a claim is declined, and who talks to the clinic and the insurer when English is not your first language. We do that work for our clients, at no extra cost. Which makes the short answer this — buy through someone who will still be arguing your case on the day it matters. Get in touch, or read the questions clients ask most first.