NZ Health Insurance And NZ Life Insurance Documentation

Written By: Hayden Ballantyne on September 14, 2010 No Comment

The documentation contained within your Insurance contract is a vital determining factor when a claim is being reviewed by an insurance company. If you’re no different than most of us then you will not have read, or even paid a second thought to your policy documentation. That’s no surprise as these documents are intimidating and incredibly hard to understand at the best of times.

In a nutshell, these policy wordings are the physical evidence of the contract between the insurance company and you. When a claim is lodged against a policy, it is these conditions that will be the crucial factor in determining the outcome of that claim. Contract terms and conditions are fundamental in ensuring the owner of the policy gets what they have paid for. With amounts in the tens of thousands of dollars at stake, it is well worth your time and effort in making sure that you fully understand them.

Believe it or not but not all policy wordings are the same. It is possible that new policy conditions (issued as replacements for lost/stolen originals) may contain more onerous benefit/rider restrictions, heightened powers for the life insurance company and increased responsibilities on the client, relative to those contained in the original policy wordings. It is important to note that these alterations cannot be retrospectively applied to existing contracts unless the original policy wordings cater for it.

All changes that lessen the rights of a policy holder are usually not allowed under the terms of a Life Insurance contract. In recent times there have been a number of companies using the policy wordings to enable them to apply such retrospective changes. Take this into account when deciding on the best insurance contract for you.

Sometimes newer versions of the contracts actually contain improvements to the advantage a policy owner, and these enhancements are occasionally applied retrospectively giving a positive benefit for all existing clients.

But I’m not a lawyer – How can I be expected to make head or tail of this? It’s a good question and one that comes up often so I’ve put together 3 simple steps that anyone should be able to use to make sure your policy entitlements are not being eroded:

1) Make sure you keep in regular contact with your adviser. Expertise, advice and guidance are your best protection and your adviser should be able to easily spot any unfavourable changes to your contract. 2) Make certain that you file your policy documentation in a safe place and that you give a copy of the original to your adviser. If you misplace or lose the original, then get in touch with your adviser and ask them to send you a replacement. This gets around the possible problems that may occur if you have to request a copy from the Life Insurance company. 3) The original policy document is not to be sent to anyone, just send a copy of it and keep the original safe and sound as this is the only evidence you have of your entitlements.

Bear in mind that your policy document is exceedingly important and we suggest you treat it as such.

Look no further for the best NZ Health Insurance and NZ Life Insurance.