The Opportunity Party wants the government to take a formal role in managing insurance retreat – setting national rules for how it is identified, who bears the cost, and what risk information homeowners are entitled to before purchasing a property.
The proposal is part of the party’s Climate Resilient Aotearoa policy, released September 18 ahead of November’s general election. For the insurance sector, three elements are most relevant: a National Insurance Support Framework, an expanded role for the Natural Hazards Commission (NHC), and mandatory climate-risk disclosure across property, mortgage, and insurance products.
The National Insurance Support Framework would set national rules for identifying and managing insurance retreat, require forward-looking risk assessments for homeowners, and create a cost-sharing structure across central government, local government, insurers, and property owners.
The policy document describes what the framework is designed to address: “We are already seeing the early stages of insurance retreat: when insurers raise premiums, restrict cover, or withdraw entirely from high-risk areas. This is not just an insurance issue. It is a housing and infrastructure issue, a fairness issue, and a national economic issue.”
Party leader Qiulae Wong, in an interview with Interest.co.nz conducted before the policy’s release, said any cost-sharing model would require broad input. “We do need participation from local government, from citizens, from businesses, communities, iwi on what that looks like and what’s fair, because it’s a situation that people didn’t foresee and they made decisions based on the settings at the time, but the reality is, it is going to cost someone some money, and we have to do that fairly,” she said.
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Opportunity proposes extending the NHC’s mandate to include assessing national climate risk, recommending adaptation targets, and coordinating open hazard data for councils, iwi, and hapū.
The commission would also work alongside homeowners, councils, insurers, and banks to identify highly vulnerable properties – funding resilience works or, as a last resort, relocation.
Under the proposal, the NHC would take on a formal role in property-level risk conversations that currently sit within the private sector.
The policy calls on the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) to extend its climate stress-testing to monitor mortgage lending risks tied to flood and coastal hazard exposure and insurance retreat, as well as commercial lending exposure to a rising carbon price.
It also proposes mandatory climate-risk disclosure on new property developments, mortgages, and insurance products, so that “buyers, banks, and investors can make informed decisions and property markets are not destabilised by sudden shocks.”
For brokers, that disclosure requirement carries the most direct operational implication – changing advice obligations at placement and renewal for any property with flood or coastal exposure.
The conditions the Opportunity proposals are responding to are documented across multiple regulatory and consumer sources.
An August 2025 Consumer NZ report, using Stats NZ data, found house insurance premiums have risen 916% since 2000. Among uninsured homeowners, the share who cited cost as the reason for dropping cover rose from 7% in 2022 to 17% by 2025.
The RBNZ’s May 2026 Financial Stability Report warned that “emerging pressures from insurance affordability, underinsurance, and insurance retreat from areas exposed to elevated flooding risk indicate financial stability risks may increase.” The central bank estimated the total sum insured for New Zealand residential dwellings at around $1.5 trillion for 2024/2025. The NHC separately estimated around 60,000 homes currently sit without insurance.
Retreat has also moved from projection to practice. At the end of 2025, AA Insurance wrote to Buller District Mayor Chris Russell advising it would halt new home, business, and landlord insurance policies for properties in the 7825 postcode, covering Westport, Carters Beach, and Cape Foulwind, citing elevated flood exposure. The Buller District Council published a summary of the letter on its website. Existing policies were not affected.
The Insurance Council of New Zealand (ICNZ) has been pushing for government-led adaptation action, and its stated position aligns with the type of intervention Opportunity is now proposing.
In October 2025, ICNZ chief executive Kris Faafoi wrote that when the council met with global reinsurers in London, they were told adaptation was not optional. “To attract and maintain global insurance capital, New Zealand needs long-term certainty and policy stability,” Faafoi wrote.
When the government released its National Adaptation Framework in October 2025, ICNZ welcomed it but flagged the need for further action. “The sooner New Zealand moves from talking about adaptation to acting on it, the better protected our communities will be,” Faafoi said.
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Whether these proposals reach legislation depends on the November election result and any coalition arrangements that follow. Opportunity is a minor party and would need to be part of a governing arrangement to advance the policy.
The funding and allocation questions left open in the published document would need to be resolved through the legislative process if the policy progresses.
Consumer NZ, the RBNZ, and ICNZ have each reached the same conclusion from different starting points: private markets alone are not structured to manage an orderly withdrawal from high-risk areas. The Opportunity proposal is the first to put a specific government framework around that problem ahead of a general election.
The shape of any government response will be clearer after November.
