Do I Need Health Insurance in New Zealand?
A common question that comes up especially for expats is "do I need health insurance or can I rely on the health system?"
There are varying opinions in New Zealand usually based on peoples own personal experience rather than probabilities and potential outcomes.
Health insurance is s probably good for most people to be able to go private, avoid waiting lists and choose your specialist.
However it can come down to financial priorities for many in which case probably life insurance and income protection is more of a need for most.
However, you do need to be aware that there a lot of new, and very expensive drugs that you may need to prolong your life which are not funded by the New Zealand health system. These are called "non pharmac" drugs which effectively means drugs that are not funded by the public health system.
These drugs could easily cost $150,000 per year, and in some cases could be higher still. Some health insurance providers will cover around $20k per year for non pharmac and others will cover up to $300k per year.
Non pharmac coverage absolutely matters even if you don't want the basic health coverage itself, you could take a $10k excess on the health insurance to bring the cost right down, and be covered for the big stuff like non pharmac provisions, and deal with a very significant risk to you and your families financial lives as well as your personal lives.
We're passionate about this and are absolutely here if you need to talk and work through the best insurance options in the market for your situation.
You can book a 30 min free chat with us here