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General information only, not financial advice. Simple Car Insurance is a comparison and information site — not an insurer, broker or financial adviser — and nothing here is a recommendation about a policy or insurer for you. How we make money.
Editorial policy

What we publish, and what we will not

Every policy fact here was read in the insurer’s own document, and carries that document’s link, a verbatim quote and the date. Where we could not read a source, the page says so rather than softening it. This is the list of what did not make it, and why — which is the only way to tell a site that checks things from one that does not.

Last checked against its sources on 2026-09-16

The rules

  1. A figure needs a document we opened.URL, document title, verbatim quote, date read. A fact missing any of the four is not published, and its cell says “Not checked yet”.
  2. We never invent a business, a person, a review, a rating or a number. If a value does not exist, the field stays empty and the page says why it is empty.
  3. No premium figures at all. No insurer in this market publishes a rate table, so any band would be a guess wearing a dollar sign.
  4. No verdicts. An opinion about which policy a particular person should buy is financial advice under the Financial Markets Conduct Act 2013. Lists are alphabetical, always.
  5. Facts expire on a 120-day cycle, so a stale cell reverts to “Not checked yet” instead of quietly ageing on the page.
  6. The author is the organisation. No personal bylines, no invented team members, no stock photographs of people who do not work here.

Today that comes to 68 sourced facts across 8 insurers and 18 of the 72 comparison cells left explicitly blank.

Claims we checked and will not publish

Several of these are figures the rest of this market states confidently. We could not find a source for them, so they are not here.

A standard excess figure for AA Insurance, AMI, Tower, Trade Me Insurance, Vero, NZI and Cove

None of the seven publishes one. Each says the figure is on your own policy schedule or certificate of insurance, which is correct, and is what the table says. Only State publishes a standard excess ($300), so only State's is shown.

An under-25 excess figure for AA Insurance, AMI, State, Tower, Trade Me Insurance, Vero and NZI

Seven of the eight confirm that an additional excess or a restriction exists but publish no dollar amount. Only Cove publishes figures ($500 for a driver aged 21 to 24, $1,000 for a driver without a full New Zealand licence), and State publishes that its $300 standard excess applies to under-25s too. The rest of the column says so rather than filling in a plausible number.

A named dispute resolution scheme for AA Insurance, AMI, State, Tower, Trade Me Insurance, Vero and NZI

Only Cove's wording names its scheme (the Insurance & Financial Services Ombudsman). Tower's and Trade Me Insurance's wordings say a complaint can be escalated to “our external disputes resolution provider” without naming it. Consumer Protection's own advice is to ask the insurer which scheme it belongs to, so that is what the claims pages say.

A policy wording document for NZI

NZI's vehicle insurance page builds its “Read policy (PDF)” links in JavaScript and no PDF URL could be read from the served HTML. NZI is broker-distributed and publishes no excess figures or online quote. Its row is largely “Not checked yet” and says why.

A hire car benefit for Vero

The MotorPlan wording read for this site contains no hire car or rental car benefit. There is an emergency accommodation and transport benefit of up to $1,500, which is a different thing and is described as itself. An absent benefit is reported as absent, not left blank.

A verified referral fee for Cove Insurance

About $100 per customer has been recorded internally, but the Cove page said to carry it returns 404, and the page that does exist is a customer refer-a-friend programme rather than a publisher arrangement. No figure appears on /disclosure and no link is marked Partner until a signed agreement supplies the wording. The partner gate ships closed.

Official timeframes for making or settling a car insurance claim

No official New Zealand source states any. The only timeframe this site publishes is Cove's own two-month point for escalating a complaint to the Ombudsman, quoted from Cove's wording.

Insurer logos, star ratings, review scores, “vetted” or “recommended” labels, and head-to-head verdicts

We have no permission to use any insurer's logo, no review data of our own, and no basis for a rating. The Advertising Standards Code requires the basis for a comparative claim to be made clear; the honest position is that we make no such claim. Insurers appear as text names, alphabetically.

If we get something wrong

If a page here disagrees with an insurer’s own document, the document is right. Send us the link and we will correct the page and change the date on it.

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Sources

Read on 2026-09-16. If a source and this page disagree, the source is right.