House insurance increases highest in four years

Wednesday, 8 August 2018

Data shows the change in the price of house insurance is near what it was post the Canterbury earthquakes.

Home insurance premiums have risen 17.9 per cent over the last year.

It's a level of increase that has not been recorded since 2014, according to Statistics New Zealand.

Data from the Consumers Price Index on dwelling insurance showed a steady creep upwards in premium price since 2016.

Between 2015 and 2016, insurance premiums remained largely unchanged. In March 2016, premiums were only 1.4 per cent higher than a year earlier.

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Prior to that, the year-on-year increases had skyrocketed in response to the Canterbury Earthquakes. The largest change occurred in the year to December 2014. Over that time, house insurance became 43.9 per cent more expensive.

Insurers are now adopting premium hikes based on the level of natural disaster risk homes are exposed to, and some homeowners are seeing their premium increases in line with 2012 levels.

Earlier this year, Tower warned customers it had switched to risk-based pricing, and people in earthquake-prone areas - and towns like Wellington, Napier and Gisborne - would be most likely to pay more.

Learn more about the information shown above, and explore more charts, at Figure.NZ's site.