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homeinsurance.org.nz
A quiet suburban street of single-storey weatherboard homes with iron roofs and low front hedges.

Insurance when you buy your first home

Your lender will require cover in place before settlement, and the date it starts matters more than most people expect.

What kind of home is it?
Buying your first home in New Zealand, on a weatherboard bungalow with a person walking up the front path.

The short answer

What this means for your cover

Your lender will require cover in place before settlement, and the date it starts matters more than most people expect.

Buying your first home is usually the first time anyone asks you for a sum insured. That is a dollar figure for what it would cost to rebuild the house. It is not the price you paid and it is not the council value.

Who sells house insurance in New Zealand

Every brand you can buy cover from here.

Highly rated

Cove

Underwritten by Vero Insurance New Zealand Limited

4.6 out of 5

1,284 reviews

Get Quote Goes to Cove

Highly rated

AA Insurance

Carries its own risk

4.3 out of 5

2,917 reviews

Get Quote Goes to AA Insurance

AMI

Underwritten by IAG New Zealand Limited

3.9 out of 5

1,642 reviews

Get Quote Goes to AMI

FMG

Carries its own risk

Not rated

Get Quote Goes to FMG

Initio

Underwritten by NZI, a business division of IAG New Zealand Limited

4.1 out of 5

213 reviews

Get Quote Goes to Initio

MAS

Carries its own risk

4.4 out of 5

388 reviews

Get Quote Goes to MAS

NZI

Underwritten by IAG New Zealand Limited

Not rated

Get Quote Goes to NZI

State

Underwritten by IAG New Zealand Limited

3.8 out of 5

2,104 reviews

Get Quote Goes to State

Tower

Carries its own risk

4.0 out of 5

3,562 reviews

Get Quote Goes to Tower

Trade Me Insurance

Underwritten by Tower Limited

3.6 out of 5

741 reviews

Get Quote Goes to Trade Me Insurance

Vero

Carries its own risk

Not rated

Get Quote Goes to Vero

Ratings are curated from a number of sources, including Google, Feefo and Trustpilot. They may not be completely up to date. They measure what reviewers said about dealing with a company, which is not the same thing as what its policy covers, and a brand shown as not rated is one we hold no reviews for rather than one that scored badly.

Highly rated rows appear first and are marked. Every other brand is listed alphabetically. Nothing in this table is ordered by how good the cover is, and no figure here is our assessment of any insurer.

In more detail

What to check, and who to ask

Your bank will want the house insured before settlement, and will want to be noted on the policy. The date cover starts is set by your sale and purchase agreement, so your solicitor is the person to ask.

A fuller guide to this is being written.

Related

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All situations

Buying, selling, renovating and the rest.

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What the building policy covers.

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Four questions, no figures.

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Disclaimer

General information only. Not personalised financial advice.

Home insurance is one of the few contracts most households hold for decades and read once. What a policy covers, what it excludes, and what has to be disclosed before it starts all vary between insurers and between versions of the same product, and the wording is what settles a claim. This site explains how the cover generally works so those conversations start from a better place. It is not a substitute for the policy document.

What this site is

An information site about insuring a home in New Zealand. Not an insurer, not a broker, not a registered financial adviser. Nothing here is personalised financial advice or a recommendation about any particular property.

What this site does not do

It publishes no premiums, no rebuild costs and no sum-insured figures, and nothing here estimates one. Those numbers come from an insurer's own calculator or a registered valuer, and getting them wrong is what underinsurance is made of.

What the insurer decides

Whether cover is offered, on what terms, at what price and with what exclusions is decided by the insurer, on the information given to them about the specific property.

Our relationship with Cove

This site refers people to three insurance brands. Cove for most homes, FMG for farms and lifestyle blocks, and AA Insurance for apartments. We receive no commission, fee or payment for any of those referrals, and nothing on this site is sold. No brand can buy a position, a badge or a mention. We are not an insurer, not a broker, and not a registered financial adviser. Nothing here is a recommendation that any brand is right for any particular home. Full disclosure on the partner page.

The policy wording decides

Every description of cover on this site describes what that type of cover generally does, not what any particular policy does. Limits, excesses, exclusions and conditions differ between insurers and change between versions, and the wording issued with a policy is the document that settles a claim.

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Important information

About this site, what it does not do, and your protections.

Last reviewed 1 September 2026.

1. What this site is

Homeinsurance.org.nz is an information site about insuring a home in New Zealand. We are not an insurer, not a broker, and not a financial adviser. We do not arrange, sell or underwrite insurance. We do not hold your money. We do not give regulated financial advice, as defined by the Financial Markets Conduct Act 2013 Part 6 and the Financial Services Legislation Amendment Act 2019. Nothing here is advice about your situation.

2. No premiums, no rebuild costs, no sum insured

This site publishes no prices, no rebuild costs and no sum insured figures, and nothing here guesses at one. A sum insured is what it would cost to rebuild one particular house. That number comes from an insurer’s calculator, or from a valuer who has seen the building. Where we explain what a sum insured is, we are explaining the idea. We are not giving you a figure.

3. The quote starter

The tool names a cover type based on how a home is used. It is not a quote. It is not an application. It does not mean cover is available or will be offered. Your answers stay in your browser and are not sent anywhere.

4. General information, not advice

Everything here is general information. It does not take account of your situation, your goals or your property. For a decision about cover, a licensed financial adviser or an insurance broker is the safer place to go. That is especially true if a property has past claims, a flood or earthquake risk, or building work that never got consent.

5. What the policy wording decides

When we describe cover, we describe what that kind of cover usually does. Limits, excesses, exclusions and conditions differ between insurers, and between versions of the same product. The document issued with your policy is the one that settles your claim. Where this site and that document disagree, the document wins.

6. Our relationship with Cove

Cove is the one brand we refer people to. We get no commission, fee or payment for it. No insurer pays us for a mention, a position or a write-up anywhere here. We do not claim Cove is the cheapest or the best cover for any home. Other insurers are described on their merits. This site is not independent, because it has one named partner, and we do not call ourselves independent. The full story is on our partner page. Cove is a brand, not an insurer. Its own documents name the company that carries the risk.

7. Privacy and personal information

Under the Privacy Act 2020, we run no forms and collect nothing about you. Your quote starter answers stay in your browser. They are never sent to a server we control. We use Google Analytics 4 to count visits, which tells us nothing about you personally. Click through to an insurer and you leave our site. From that point their privacy policy applies.

8. Duty of disclosure

New Zealand law says you have to tell an insurer the things they would want to know. The Contracts of Insurance Act 2024 changed how that works for everyday policies. A claim can be cut back or turned down over something you did not mention at the start. Building work, past claims, and stretches where the house sat empty are the usual ones. What any particular insurer needs is a question for them.

9. Fair dealing posture

This site follows the fair dealing rules in the Financial Markets Conduct Act 2013 Part 2 and the Fair Trading Act 1986. We also follow the Fair Insurance Code. We do not mislead, make things up, or state claims we cannot back. Facts and figures are either hedged or linked to the source. Those sources are the Natural Hazards Commission Toka TΕ« Ake, MBIE, Stats NZ, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, the Insurance Council of New Zealand, Tenancy Services, the Commerce Commission and the Financial Markets Authority.

10. Complaints

We do not sell insurance, so we cannot deal with a complaint about a policy. Take it to your insurer first. If they do not fix it, take it to their complaints scheme. Most New Zealand insurers belong to the Insurance & Financial Services Ombudsman, which is free and independent.

11. Limitation of liability and governing law

As far as New Zealand law allows, Homeinsurance.org.nz and the people who run it are not liable for any loss or damage from using this site, or from relying on anything on it or linked from it. That covers direct and indirect loss. These terms are governed by New Zealand law, and any dispute goes to a New Zealand court.

Long form: terms, privacy, footer disclaimer.