Insurance know-how for every age and stage

4-5 minute read

Protecting you, your possessions and lifestyle is important. The real trick is finding the sweet spot that reflects where you’re at. It’s the savvy way to ensure you’re appropriately, rather than overly covered. Here’s a quick overview to help you safeguard your financial wellbeing now and further down the line.  

Starting out (usually ages 18 to 25)

We call this life stage ’starting out’, but you probably think of it as the fun and freedom years. This phase is all about study, training, or kicking off your career. You’re less likely to have kids or own a home, but you might have a car and a few other valuable possessions that could be accidentally damaged, lost or stolen.

Here are three types of insurance that you young’uns might want to consider: 


Contents

If you’re trying to save, or pay off a student loan, it can be tempting to flag contents insurance. But ask yourself this. Could you handle the financial hit of having to replace your laptop if you lost it? What if your BBQ set fire to the neighbour’s fence? Could you afford to replace these? Hard no?

Contents insurance doesn’t just help replace or repair the items that you own, it might also cover accidental damage to someone else’s things too. 

Car

Beware the carpark fender bender or accidentally reversing into your neighbour’s new Tesla. The cost to repair yours or another car can come as an unexpected expense. So, whether you’re running around in your first beater, or you’re high rolling it in something newer, choose from basic (Third Party Fire and Theft or Third Party Only) through to comprehensive insurance. It’s the smart way to avoid a neighbours at war situation as a result of any dings. 

Life & Living

We’re not trying to go all doom and gloom on you, but things can go wrong, even when you’re young. If you suddenly had to stop work due to an unexpected illness, such as cancer, could you cover your day-to-day expenses? With ANZ Life & Living you can cherry pick one component – Life, Critical Illness, or Living Expenses – or get the whole package. 

Settling down (usually ages 25 to 50)

This is when insurance can really escalate in importance. You might be climbing the career ladder, own a home and maybe have dependents. Which means, you'd have a lot more that needs protecting.

So, here’s what you might want to consider: 


Life & Living

You may have some cover in place from your starting out years, but since then your family, responsibilities and debt might have grown. If you’re the main breadwinner, or main caregiver, then you might want to think about how you’d cover bills, home loans and childcare if your income stream or ability to look after your dependents was impacted. Protecting your income, life and lifestyle could help keep you and your loved ones afloat should the unexpected happen. 

House

A decent weather event can cause expensive and disruptive damage to your home, while a gradual leak could cause unseen damage over an extended period of time – not many of us could afford to repair or rebuild out of our own pocket. That’s why insuring your home is important. Side note: Once we own a home we tend to accrue more stuff, so this could be a good time to review your contents cover as well. 


Well established (usually ages 50+)

At this point you might be closer to paying off your home loan, or maybe you’re one of the lucky ones that already has. Plus, if you have kids getting older, it’s natural to start thinking about the next phase – maybe travel, or more time with whanau and friends could be on the horizon. Insurance is still important, but a little rejig might be required to keep the balance right.

Life & Living: Maybe you don’t require the same amount of life or living expenses cover if you’ve (congrats by the way) cleared your mortgage. 

House and contents: If you’ve made improvements to your house, or your art collection has expanded, then you might want to look at increasing your level of contents or house insurance to ensure that you’d be covered if a fire or natural disaster were to happen.  

Protecting your business

Businesses come in all shapes and sizes, so business insurance does too. 

Here are some things to think about depending on how your business operates: 

  • If you’re a consultancy services business, your focus might be on insuring against potential liability arising from the advice you give to clients.
  • If you’re a manufacturing business, you may need to think about insuring your plant and stock against production disruptions, or issues arising from malfunction or contamination. 
  • If you’re a tradie, you may want to insure your tools and your vehicle. 
  • You may also consider your ability to continue earning by having income protection in case something happens to you and you can’t work. 

Our trusted insurance partners recommend solutions that are specifically designed to protect you and your business from insurable events. Ready to review yours? 

Important information

This article is for information purposes only. We recommend seeking financial advice about your situation and goals before getting a financial product. To talk to one of our team at ANZ, please call 0800 269 296, or for more information about ANZ’s financial advice service or to view our financial advice provider disclosure statement see anz.co.nz/fapdisclosure

ANZ insurance policies are underwritten by third party insurers. No member of ANZ or its related companies or any other person guarantees these insurers or any of the products issued by them. ANZ may receive a commission onany policy it arranges. For full details of cover, including limits, conditions and exclusions, see the relevant policy document available on our insurance pages or by calling 0800 269 855.