FAQs

If you apply online for a new policy, you’ll get a 10% discount for your first year. You might also be eligible for a further 10% discount depending on your health and lifestyle.

It can depend on the kind of policy you have:

For life insurance policies, the claim is paid to,

• the policy owner or,
• the beneficiary nominated in the policy document (policies from Nov-24 onwards)
• if the policy owner has died, to their estate.

For a mortgage policy

• the beneficiary nominated in the policy document

For an Income Protection policy

• the beneficiary nominated in the policy document

For a Funeral policy

• the beneficiary nominated in the policy document

We have a range of tools to help you work out the right amount of cover for your needs. Go through our no-obligation online advice process to find out what we recommend for you. Or find out what level of cover others of your age and gender have asked for.

To find out more about our products, and what needs they meet, please contact us on 0800 22 22 23 or by email and we’d be happy to advise you based on your current needs and circumstances.

The owner or owners are the people

• who will receive any proceeds of a claim or if the owner is deceased, the claim will be paid to their estate. If there are two owners and one has died in most cases the proceeds of a claim will be paid to the surviving owner.
• who can authorise changes to this policy like
• reducing the cover
• changing the beneficiaries (if your policy has a beneficiary) or
• cancelling the policy. If there is more than one owner then all of the owners will need to agree to any changes.

It depends on your answers to the health and lifestyle questions that we ask to offer you cover. For many people, we can assess their information fully online, and they will have Life Insurance in less than 10 minutes.

If we can’t accept your application online immediately, we’ll be in touch to let you know the next steps.

If that means we need more information from you, then the process may take another day or two. If we need information from your GP, it will depend on how quickly your GP responds to our request. Some doctors respond within a week, and others can take two to three weeks or longer.

We do everything we can to make your application as quick and easy as we can. If you are worried your application is taking longer than it should, please get in touch by emailing us at ask@pinnaclelife.co.nz or phoning 0800 22 22 23.

If you apply for a policy online, are approved and accept the declaration you are covered straight away.

You then need to make sure you pay your first premium within 14 days. If we don't receive a premium payment from you, then your policy will be suspended until we do. (If you need to claim within the first 14 days, we must receive the premium first.)

We will send you a copy of your policy document for your files immediately.

If you have vaped or used E-cigarettes within the last 12 months you are considered to be a smoker.

Once you have been smokefree and have not smoked tobacco or any other substance including e-cigarettes and vaping, you can request to change to non-smoker rates which are cheaper.

We assess your health at the time of your application to ensure that the price we charge you reflects the risks associated with your health. Doing this assessment at the time of application means there should be no hiccups or delays if you need to make a claim.

Having a health issue shouldn’t stop you from applying.

Your health conditions might affect your application, as depending on the condition, we may:

• accept your application at standard premiums, or
• we may ask you to pay a higher premium than the standard (called a loading), or
• we may defer your application for up to 12 months.

If, after you’ve answered our questions, we need more details about your health we may ask for your permission to get notes from your doctor. We ask for these details so that we can make a fair and accurate assessment of your application for cover by having an accurate picture of your health.

Probably not – in fact less than 2% of customers who apply for cover need to visit a GP. Depending on your answers on the application form, we may require additional information from you or from your GP but this does not mean you have to visit them. We simply ask them to send us the relevant information from your medical file. Some GPs want to see or speak with you before they will release the information to us, we will let you know as soon as possible if this is the case.

Occasionally we may require you to see your GP to have a medical exam or to have a blood test done, but if this is the case we will discuss it with you first.

It’s best to give us as much information as possible at the time you apply to ensure there are no issues or questions come claim time. If you are not sure where to put something on your application then you can answer “yes” to the question about ‘any other medical condition” and provide the details there, or you can ‘disagree’ to the policy terms and conditions at the end of the application, This will give you the ability to provide additional information and we will be in contact with you. Alternatively, you can call us on 0800 22 22 23 or send us a chat message and we can discuss where it might fit in the application.

Some people use a name that’s different from their legal name, while some people will have two legal names; your medical records might use one name and your driver’s licence something different. Getting things set up right at the start of your policy is going to make things easier for you or your family come claim time as there won’t be any hassles over identification.

If you use more than one name then when applying enter the name that you expect will appear on official documents like your passport (and your death certificate).

If you think that your medical records or death certificate might be in a different name then the one you’ve entered then contact us after you submit your application. Our team will talk you through the next steps, (eg we might need copies of your ID) and we’ll make sure you are using whatever name you prefer in correspondence.

You can pay your Pinnacle Life premiums monthly, six-monthly or yearly. We prefer it if you pay by direct debit, however we also accept internet banking/automatic payment, or credit card. When paying via credit card, a charge of 3.95% is added to your premiums.

We do not accept weekly or fortnightly payments.

Your life insurance will be paid out to the owner of the policy. In most cases the person whose life is insured is also the policy owner, so when the life insured dies the payout will go to their estate. What happens to the money will depend on what’s set out in their will. If you want your money to go to a charity make sure you’ve specified that in your will.