One of the great things about the internet is that information that was not readily available in the past, is now just a mouse-click away. Where would you have had to go 10 years ago to get competitive pricing on life insurance? An insurance broker of course.
But now that’s all changed.
A Gooooogle search turns up any number of quotes. For example, we sourced the following prices for a basic term life insurance product from a broker website called NZLife. Curiously, we found the Pinnacle Life price was missing from their website. We didn't like that much so we just popped the pricing into the table to see how it stacks up.
| Term Life insurance $200,000 cover for a 45 yo non-smoker | Male | Female | Average | Comparison with Pinnacle Life |
| Pinnacle Life | 25.77 | 21.72 | 23.75 | 0% |
| Fidelity | 27.86 | 22.00 | 24.93 | +5% |
| NZLife | 27.16 | 22.93 | 25.05 | +5% |
| AXA | 29.47 | 23.16 | 26.32 | +11% |
| Sovereign | 31.08 | 26.19 | 28.64 | +21% |
| KiwiLife | 31.08 | 26.19 | 28.64 | +21% |
| State | 31.08 | 26.19 | 28.64 | +21% |
| Asteron | 33.27 | 27.13 | 30.20 | +27% |
| ING | 34.41 | 29.24 | 31.83 | +34% |
| Tower | 34.83 | 29.84 | 32.34 | +36% |
| AIG | 39.05 | 31.83 | 35.44 | +49% |
| AA Life | 45.41 | 30.91 | 38.16 | +61% |
| AMP | 41.23 | 35.27 | 38.25 | +61% |
| ASB | 47.95 | 36.70 | 42.33 | +78% |
| All prices (other than Pinnacle Life) were sourced from NZ Life website 2 June 2008 | ||||
What’s interesting if you look down the list is the gap between top and bottom... 78% to be exact.
That’s huge given the product is essentially a simple commodity... a lump-sum payout upon your death.
What is also interesting is that the bigger companies or those with the bigger brands tend to be the most expensive which is counter intuitive, because these are the companies that should deliver economies of scale.
Our point - you really don’t have to pay top dollar for life insurance. And you don’t have to believe that big companies deliver lower costs. And at the end of the day, it’s all the same cover.
We’ve done some of the work for you – you make the choice.
