Who Tower is
Tower Limited is a New Zealand insurer, listed on the NZX. That is rarer than it sounds. Most familiar names on New Zealand house policies are brands owned by a bigger group. AMI, State and NZI all belong to IAG New Zealand. Vero sits inside Suncorp New Zealand, alongside the AA Insurance joint venture. Tower is different. It carries the risk itself, writes its own policies and runs its own claims team.
That matters for one practical reason. The underwriter is the company that carries the risk and pays the claim. When two brands share an underwriter, they usually share the same policy document and the same claims team. So two quotes are really one opinion wearing two names. A Tower quote is a genuinely separate view of your house.
Tower also underwrites Trade Me Insurance. Its own documents say so. If you get a quote from both, you have one insurer, not two.
How the cover is put together
Tower uses a sum insured. That is a dollar figure on your policy for what it would cost to rebuild your house. The policy pays to rebuild up to that figure and no further. It is the ceiling on any claim for the building. You supply the number, not Tower. Every New Zealand insurer has worked this way since the Canterbury earthquakes.
There is one useful bit of cover above that ceiling. If fire destroys your house, Tower pays up to another 20% on top of your sum insured. Three things have to be true. The loss was caused by fire. Tower decides the house is not worth repairing. And rebuilding would cost more than your sum insured. It is a real safety net if your figure has fallen behind building costs. It is also narrow on purpose. It covers fire, but not a fire that follows a natural hazard like an earthquake.
Demand surge protection deals with a similar problem. After a big storm or quake, every damaged house in the area gets fixed at once. Builders and materials get scarce, so prices jump. This benefit adds a percentage on top of your sum insured to soak that up. Unlike the fire cover, the level you buy changes the figure.
Your excess is the amount you pay towards a claim before the insurer pays the rest. Tower charges one excess per event, not one per damaged item. So a storm that wrecks your roof, your fence and your deck is one event and one excess. Tower lists this as a benefit, which tells you how often people get caught by the alternative.
What the policy covers, benefit by benefit
This is every automatic benefit the Standard wording lists, what each one actually does, and the limit that applies at this level. Where a higher level carries a different figure, the note says so.
Two rows are worth pausing on. Landscaping reads as a thousand dollars of cover for the garden, but the clause responds to fire and to vehicle impact, not to storm, which is the cause most people have in mind. And garden retaining walls carries a fifteen thousand dollar automatic limit that can be raised to the sum insured as an optional benefit, so the figure in the table is a floor rather than a ceiling.
| Benefit | What it covers | Limit |
|---|---|---|
| Damage caused by a natural hazard | Earthquake, flood, landslip and the other natural hazards, handled together with the Natural Hazards Commission. | Included at every level |
| Extended sum insured for fire | Extra cover above the sum insured where a house is lost to fire and Tower decides it is uneconomic to repair. | Sum insured plus 20%Does not apply to fire following a natural hazard. |
| One event, one excess | A single event that damages several things attracts one excess rather than one per item. | Included at every level |
| Liability protection | Legal liability to others for physical property damage arising from an accident at the house. | $20 million |
| Bodily injury | Liability cover for bodily injury, listed separately from property damage. | $100,000 |
| Temporary accommodation | Somewhere else to live while the house is uninhabitable after a covered loss. | $15,000 per eventPremium carries $30,000 and Plus $25,000. The largest gap between levels. |
| Hidden gradual water damage | Repair of hidden gradual damage, deterioration, mildew, mould or rot caused by a leaking or overflowing water system. | $1,000Premium carries $3,000 and Plus $2,000. |
| Landscaping | Replacement of lawn, flowers, trees, hedges or shrubs damaged when the house suffers a loss. | $1,000Narrower than the figure suggests: the wording responds to fire, or impact from a vehicle where the claim is accepted. Not to storm. |
| Garden retaining walls | Retaining walls on the property, limited separately from the house itself. | $15,000Also offered as an optional benefit up to the sum insured, at every level. |
| House under minor alteration | The house while minor alteration work is under way, plus building materials bought for it and stored at the house. | $10,000Premium carries $50,000 and Plus $20,000. |
| Keys and locks lost or stolen | Replacing keys or locks, or changing key codes, where keys are lost, stolen or reasonably believed to be. | $500, no excessPremium carries $2,000 and Plus $1,000. |
| Sustainability upgrade | Adding or upgrading to sustainable products when rebuilding after a total loss. | $15,000The same at every level. Total loss only. |
| Demand surge protection | An allowance above the sum insured for the cost of trades and materials rising after a large regional event. | 10%Premium carries 15%. |
| Stress benefit lump sum | A payment on top of the claim where the house is a total loss. | Not included at this levelPremium carries $2,000 and Plus $1,000. |
| Glass breakage reduced excess | A lower excess where a claim is only for broken glass. | Not listed at this levelPremium reduces the excess to $100 and Plus to $200. |
| Special features | Individually scheduled items with their own sum insured, for anything the standard limits do not fit. | Optional, up to the sum insured |
The four levels, and what actually changes
Tower sells house cover at four levels. Premium, Plus, Standard, and a Landlord’s Plus for rented-out homes. It is easy to assume the top level buys wider cover and the bottom one buys narrower cover. That is not quite what happens here.
The core promise is the same at all four levels. All of them rebuild to your sum insured. All of them add the 20% fire top-up. All of them charge one excess per event, cover natural hazards, and carry $20 million of liability cover. Buy the cheapest level and you get the same basic promise about your house as someone on the dearest one.
What changes is the size of the smaller limits, and whether a few of them exist at all. The table below comes from Tower’s own comparison table.
| Benefit | Premium | Plus | Standard | Landlord’s Plus |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hidden gradual water damage | $3,000 | $2,000 | $1,000 | $2,000 |
| Landscaping | $5,000 | $2,000 | $1,000 | $2,000 |
| Garden retaining walls | $50,000 | $25,000 | $15,000 | $25,000 |
| Temporary accommodation | $30,000 | $25,000 | $15,000 | Not listed |
| House under minor alteration | $50,000 | $20,000 | $10,000 | $20,000 |
| Keys and locks, no excess | $2,000 | $1,000 | $500 | Not listed |
| Sustainability upgrade | $15,000 | $15,000 | $15,000 | $15,000 |
| Demand surge protection | 15% | 10% | 10% | Not listed |
| Stress benefit lump sum | $2,000 | $1,000 | Not included | Not listed |
| Glass breakage excess | $100 | $200 | Not listed | Not listed |
Where the Standard level is thinner
Three gaps between Standard and the levels above it are bigger than they look. They are not the ones people usually ask about.
The first is temporary accommodation. That is somewhere else to live while your house is being fixed. Standard covers $15,000 per event. Premium covers $30,000. A rebuild often takes more than a year. At normal rent for a family home, that gap is months of cover, not small change. This is the limit you are most likely to actually feel.
The second is retaining walls. Standard covers $15,000. Premium covers $50,000. On a flat section that hardly matters. On a slope it matters a lot, because a failed wall can cost more than a room. You find out at claim time.
The third is hidden gradual water damage. That is rot from a slow leak inside a wall that nobody could see. Standard covers $1,000 and Premium covers $3,000. All of these are small next to the cost of a house. They still matter, because a slow leak is the one thing a policy would otherwise not pay for at all.
Some things do not change at all. Sustainability upgrade is $15,000 at every level. Liability is $20 million at every level. Standard does not water the cover down across the board. It waters it down in a few named places.
Risk-based pricing, and why Tower is the name attached to it
For most of the history of New Zealand house insurance, prices were averaged across a whole area. A house on a floodplain and a house up the hill in the same suburb paid about the same. The insurer spread the difference across everyone.
That has changed, and Tower moved earlier than most. Prices are now worked out house by house, based on that address’s flood and earthquake risk. Two houses on the same street can be quoted very differently. Your price can jump at renewal even though nothing about your house has changed.
This cuts both ways. If your house has low risk, an insurer that prices house by house may be cheaper than one that averages. If your house has high risk, the opposite is likely. The cover on offer may also narrow, not just the price. Nobody can tell which applies to your house without quoting it.
It also means an old quote tells you very little. One expensive renewal does not tell you much either.
When the house is left empty
This is the rule most likely to catch someone who has done nothing wrong.
If your house sits empty for more than 90 days in a row, cover shrinks from day 91. After that the policy only pays for a short list of things. Natural hazards. Fire caused by a natural hazard. And certain other fires. The everyday risks most people assume they still have, like theft and vandalism, are the ones that drop off.
Ninety days goes fast. A house stuck in an estate. A renovation that runs long. A house on the market over a slow winter. A long trip overseas. None of those feel like a decision to leave a house empty. Most insurers have a rule like this, though the number of days differs. What is odd is how easy it is to cross, and how much you lose when you do.
Telling the insurer before you hit 90 days is what protects you. The exact terms are in the policy document.
Tower and Trade Me Insurance
Trade Me Insurance house cover is underwritten by Tower. The two documents show it. Put side by side, they share the same structure and the same benefit names. At the matching level they share the same limits too. Hidden gradual water damage, $2,000. Landscaping, $2,000. Retaining walls, $25,000. Temporary accommodation, $25,000.
None of this is hidden. The documents say so, and there is nothing wrong with one insurer standing behind another brand. It matters because of what people do with quotes. Get three quotes from Tower, Trade Me and one other, and you have two opinions, not three.
The same thing happens elsewhere. AMI and State are both IAG brands, and their policy documents are almost word for word the same. Knowing which brands belong together is most of the value in comparing.
What the wording does not cover
What a policy leaves out matters as much as what it covers. Tower puts its exclusions in one section instead of scattering them.
The list is the usual New Zealand one. Wear and tear is out. So is anything that goes wrong slowly, apart from the small hidden water damage benefit. Damage to the land itself is out, beyond what the Natural Hazards Commission covers. There are rules about what the house can be used for. And there is a rule about a house that already has other insurance on it.
The exclusions worth actually reading are about the building itself. Any building work, whether it was consented, and whether it was signed off. Damage that was already there. None of that is unusual. None of it shows up on a quote screen either.
Where Tower’s limits sit against the rest of the market
A limit on its own tells you nothing. It only means something next to what other insurers offer. We read eight New Zealand house policies side by side.
On hidden gradual water damage, the market runs from $1,000 to $5,000. Tower’s Standard sits at the bottom. Its Premium sits at the top. That sums up the whole range. Tower’s four levels stretch across most of what the market offers.
Temporary accommodation is the same story. Standard’s $15,000 is the lowest of the eight. The highest is $50,000. Premium’s $30,000 sits in the upper half. Retaining walls repeat it again. Standard is bottom at $15,000 and Premium matches the best at $50,000.
Two things follow. First, comparing "Tower" to another insurer means nothing unless you say which level. The gap inside Tower is about as wide as the gap between insurers. Second, a cheap level is a cheap level. Compare it against other insurers’ cheap levels, not their best ones.
None of this says which policy is better. A bigger limit can come with a tighter rule about when it pays, a bigger excess, or a longer exclusion list. And a limit tells you nothing about how a claim gets handled. This shows you the shape of the market. It does not pick a winner.
If something goes wrong
Every licensed insurer in New Zealand is overseen by the Reserve Bank. Most also belong to the Insurance Council of New Zealand and follow the Fair Insurance Code. The Code sets out how claims and complaints should be handled. It is short enough to read in one sitting.
A complaint starts with the insurer’s own complaints process. If that does not fix it, or the insurer says it has gone as far as it will go, you can take it further. For most New Zealand insurers that means the Insurance and Financial Services Ombudsman. It is free, and it is independent of the insurer.
The order matters. The Ombudsman will usually not look at a complaint until the insurer has had its turn first.
Questions this policy leaves for the buyer
These are the points the Tower documents leave open. The right answer depends on your house, which we have never seen.
Four things the policy leaves to you rather than the insurer.
- The sum insured. Tower pays up to it, plus 20% for fire. But you supply the number. Neither top-up is meant to rescue a figure that was wrong from the start.
- Which of the four levels. The core cover is the same in all of them. The differences sit in temporary accommodation, retaining walls and hidden gradual damage. So the real question is how exposed your house is on those three.
- The 90-day empty house rule, if your house might sit empty for a season, a renovation or an estate.
- Whether you are counting a Tower quote and a Trade Me quote as two quotes or one.
Common questions
- Does Tower underwrite its own policies?
- Yes. Tower Limited is a licensed insurer listed on the NZX and carries the risk on the policies it sells under its own brand, rather than distributing cover underwritten by another company. It also underwrites Trade Me Insurance, which its documents state.
- How many levels of house cover does Tower sell?
- Four: Premium, Plus, Standard, and a Landlord’s Plus for tenanted properties. The basis of settlement, the twenty per cent extended sum insured for fire, natural hazard cover and the liability limit are the same across all of them. What changes is the size of several automatic benefit limits, and whether a few smaller benefits are included at all.
- What is Tower’s extended sum insured for fire?
- Where a house is lost to fire, Tower will pay up to a further twenty per cent of the sum insured, provided the loss was caused by fire, Tower decides the house is uneconomic to repair, and the estimated replacement cost exceeds the sum insured. It applies at every level of cover. It does not apply to fire following a natural hazard, which is covered under the natural hazard provisions instead.
- What happens if a Tower-insured house is left empty?
- Where a house is unoccupied for more than ninety consecutive days, cover is limited from day ninety-one to a narrow set of causes centred on natural hazards and certain fires. Theft and malicious damage are among the covers that fall away. Most insurers have a version of this condition, though the number of days and the consequences differ, and the exact terms are in the policy wording.
- Is Tower cheaper than other New Zealand insurers?
- That cannot be answered generally, and this site publishes no premiums. Tower prices flood and seismic exposure at individual property level, so two houses on the same street can be quoted very differently. A property with low exposure may be priced well and one with high exposure may not, and neither is predictable without a quote on the specific address.
- Is Trade Me Insurance the same as Tower?
- Trade Me Insurance house cover is underwritten by Tower. They are separate brands with their own pricing and service, but the risk sits with the same insurer and the wordings share their structure and, at equivalent levels, their benefit limits. Quotes from both are less independent of each other than quotes from two unrelated insurers.