Insurance for Your Home and Car
Insurance comes up constantly when you're buying a house, usually right in the middle of sorting the loan. We work alongside Tower, so you can start a quote for your home, contents, car or boat yourself, in your own time.
Do You Need Insurance Before Settlement?
Yes, and earlier than most people think. A lender will usually want proof cover is arranged before settlement day, and the industry advice goes further: get a quote before you even make an offer, so you know the house can be insured at all while you can still walk away. Here's how the timing works.
Get a quote first
The Insurance Council's advice is to arrange house insurance before you put in an offer, so that if the offer is accepted you already know the house is insurable. Some houses are harder to insure than others, and finding that out afterwards is a bad day. If you can't get it sorted in time, your lawyer or agent can make the sale subject to insurance in the agreement.
You get a certificate of insurance
Most insurers will issue a certificate of insurance dated the day your sale and purchase agreement goes unconditional, assuming they're happy to insure the place. That's the document that proves cover is arranged. If the sale falls over after that, you ring the insurer and cancel it.
The house is still the seller's problem
This is the part people get wrong. Your cover can only start on the day you become the legal owner, which is settlement day. In the gap before that, the seller is the one who needs to keep their own insurance running, in case something happens to the house between going unconditional and settling.
Your cover starts, and the bank checks it
Your policy starts the day the property becomes yours. The proof of cover normally goes to your lawyer as part of the settlement paperwork, so it gets handled alongside everything else rather than being a separate job. One thing to remember: tell your insurer there's a mortgage on the property and which bank it's with, because they need that recorded on the policy.
Why the bank cares
Holding adequate house insurance is a standard condition of a mortgage in New Zealand. It isn't a law, it's a term of your loan, which means the exact wording sits in your own loan documents and is worth a read. Letting cover lapse can put you in breach of those conditions, and that's the whole reason insurance turns up on the settlement checklist.
Most cover in New Zealand is sum insured, meaning you set the amount based on what it would cost to completely rebuild the house. Landing on that number is a conversation between you and your insurer, and they'll walk you through it.
General information about the buying process. Your lawyer and your insurer are the right people for your specific purchase.
Reviewing your insurance can be useful when your circumstances change, such as buying a home, moving house, renovating, or updating your car.
Start a Tower Quote Online
Tower's online journey lets you price and buy cover yourself, whenever it suits, including at 9pm the night you finally remember.
Need insurance for your home, rental, contents, car or boat? You can start a Tower quote using my link below.
Using this link tells Tower you came from us. If you take out cover, they pay us a referral fee, set out on our disclosure page.
Home and Car Insurance FAQs
Straight answers to the questions people actually ask.
Before settlement, and ideally earlier. Most lenders want proof that cover is arranged before settlement day, and the cover itself starts the day the property becomes yours. The timeline above walks through it step by step.
House, landlord, contents, car and boat, all in the one online journey. Motorbike, motorhome and caravan, business insurance and contract works (renovation cover) aren't done online. For those, email us and we'll point you the right way.
For a house or contents quote, usually the address and a rough idea of when the place was built, what it's built from and how big it is. For a car, the plate number is the main thing. If you're unsure of a detail, email us and we'll put you on to Tower's team.
Tower's team, and we'll connect you. Cover, pricing and the quote itself are theirs to answer. Email us and we'll refer you straight through to them.
Email us. We'll refer you through Tower's usual process, so their team can pick it up and, if needed, finish the quote with you over the phone. The online journey is there for people who'd rather sort it themselves, in their own time.
Not for house, contents or car. That's Tower's job, and their team is the right place for it. What we do advise on is the home loan itself, plus personal cover like life, health, trauma and mortgage protection. If you'd like those looked at properly, book a chat.
No. Tower is the insurer we hold a link with, that's the whole reason they're on this page. You're free to quote anywhere you like, and it makes no difference to the mortgage side of what we do for you.
Buying, Moving or Refinancing?
Insurance is one part of it. The loan is the bit we're actually good at. In one quick call we'll help you work out:
- What you can realistically borrow, on your actual numbers
- Whether the rate you are on still stacks up
- How settlement works, start to finish, so nothing sneaks up on you
- Which of our 25+ lenders actually fits your situation
