John MacDonald: The absurdity of our insurance market

Canterbury Mornings with John MacDonald

If this doesn’t convince you that the insurance system in this country is broken, nothing will.

Consumer NZ has revealed that in the past 25 years, the cost of insurance has increased by 900%. The largest increase of anything in the Consumer Price Index.

If you’ve bought insurance of any type in the past, maybe that won’t surprise you. Because insurance is a necessary evil and with necessary evils, we tend to shrug our shoulders and fork out the money.

But here’s what makes this news all the more outrageous – and this is the bit that you really need to get your head around.

Insurance is 900% more expensive than it was, while cigarettes and tobacco are 600% more expensive – even with the huge taxes that have been put on them to try and get people to quit smoking.

Despite all those taxes, insurance costs are still increasing at a much faster rate than tobacco. Which is the absurdity and shows how the insurance market is out of control.

Rebecca Styles from Consumer NZ is saying today that they want a review done of house and contents insurance prices to make sure they’re fair. I think I can tell her straight away that they’re not.

Consumer NZ also wants the Government to develop a switching platform to make it easier for us to change insurance companies, like we can do already with electricity companies.

It says people have limited ability to change their insurers.

But changing insurance companies is one thing, whether you can afford the premiums is another. Rebecca Styles says some people are just dropping it altogether.

"The anecdotal feedback we've received is people are making what seem like extreme pragmatic decisions - 'oh my mortgage is paid off, well I'll drop my insurance as soon as that's done'.”

She says: “I ask them, 'what will you do if there's a natural hazard or something, you're not covering for that … they're like 'oh well I'll live in a caravan'. Taking big risks with their financial future, really."

Are they ever? Reducing insurance cover or getting rid of it altogether would be the absolute last thing I would do.

But that doesn’t mean I’m happy paying exorbitant prices and that doesn’t mean I think the insurance system is in great shape.

Because it clearly isn’t.

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