$2300 house insurance gap between capital and Auckland
Friday, 6 February 2026
Wellingtonians are paying a premium of nearly $2300 for the privilege of insuring their homes compared to Aucklanders, new data shows.
The country is in a fresh period of agony over the price and availability of house insurance, but new data from the Quashed insurance comparison company shows how much more Wellington homeowners are paying to insure their homes.
Quashed lets users gather comparative quotes from different insurers through its Market Scan service to see whether they can save money on premiums by switching from their insurer to one if its rivals.
But that means Quashed gets to track how much people around the country are paying for their house insurance.
On Thursday, the business’ founder Justin Lim said Wellington homeowners using Quashed were paying an average of $4394 for their annual house insurance at the end of 2025, compared to $2004 in Auckland, and $2778 in Canterbury.
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They were also paying more for contents cover, paying an average of $1094 compared to $710 by Auckland households, and $896 by Cantabrian households.
The figures were averages, and actual figures for individual households varied considerably.
Insurers calculate premiums on individual homes based on the risk of paying claims, and the cost of those claims, and Wellington seismic risk and the challenging topography are both factors in the higher premiums homeowners are being quoted.
As insurers have headed deeper down the path of house-by-house pricing of risk, and insurer AA Insurance has paused issuing new policies in several locations, political concern has mounted.
In a cabinet paper reported by by RNZ recommending a review of the house insurance market, Treasury said premiums had increased by 40% in the past two years.
However, Quashed figures show premium increases had slowed significantly, confirming claims by insurers in their recent financial releases to investors on the ASX and NZX share markets.
Across the people seeking quotes through its service, Quashed identified a 2% increase in the 12 months from the end of 2024 to the end of 2025 for a package of house, contents and car insurance.
That had taken the average bill for someone insuring house, contents and one car rising to just under $5000 at the end of the year, led by increases in house and contents insurance, said Quashed founder Justin Lim.
Quashed publishes the figures periodically in a bid to encourage households to shop around for insurance, saying that those who do not are paying insurers a “loyalty tax” by paying higher premiums than they need to.
“When we look at the average savings that they have found via Market Scan, that adds up - for one car, one house and one contents policy - to $1351,” he said.
Not all users did find cheaper options when shopping around, but people shopping around for car or contents insurance found cheaper policies 80% of the time. For house insurance the figure was 60% of the time, Lim said.
Lim suggested that people should shop for insurance across four to five insurers.
However, he acknowledged that some homeowners had been finding they had fewer options, depending on where their homes were.
Late last month, Blenheim residents revealed AA Insurance had stopped offering new home insurance policies in their town, following similar decisions in Westport and parts of greater Christchurch, leading to fresh concerns about insurance retreat under which people owning homes in riskier places found insurers unwilling to cover them.
Lim acknowledged this issue, confirming that users had alerted Quashed when they had found they had fewer options than they had expected, or faced significant price jumps in some areas.
The insurance market has changed since financial regulators took action against major insurers for failing to always apply multi-policy discounts, under which people got discounts for having their house, contents and car policies with one insurer.
Large insurers had stopped offering the discounts, and Lim said: “The industry-wide move away from multi-policy discounts actually rewards proactive consumers who are shopping around.”
He said that this discount bundling offered up to a 20% discount, while shopping around could reduce insurance costs by 36%.
Lim said some insurers were marketing “introductory offers” for new customers, including gift cards.
But, he said: “Consumers should carefully weigh introductory offers- often gift cards ranging from $50 to $200 - against the premium and the length of time they intend to hold the policy. These one-off perks can mask premiums that are higher than the market average. Given the big price gaps between insurance providers, shopping around could put more money back in pocket for consumers.”