Of the simulated loss events that struck New Zealand secondary school students over four years, 47.9% landed on someone with no cover for that specific risk. In the adult population, only 41% of New Zealanders hold life insurance and 39% hold health insurance. Teenagers given free choice in a low-stakes environment reproduce the adult protection gap – and the data documenting that pattern has direct implications for how advisers frame the value of professional guidance.
The findings come from 51,920 secondary school students who participated in Banqer High’s Personal Risk Insurance module between 2022 and 2025, in a programme developed in partnership with life and health insurer Partners Life. Released during Money Month, the data is the most detailed classroom-scale evidence yet that consumers navigating insurance decisions without professional guidance make systematically worse choices – and that a single loss experience shifts behaviour more reliably than product information alone.
Inside the module, students manage a simulated personal economy, earning income, meeting weekly costs, and deciding whether to purchase cover against medical events or loss of income. The platform runs across a school term or year, with modules enabled progressively, meaning students who experience a loss event early retain meaningful time to respond and adjust their cover decisions. Of students holding no insurance when a loss event struck them, 54.3% subsequently took out cover. Among classmates in the same rooms who were never affected by a simulated event, only 26.8% held cover at any point across the four years.
The broader dataset reinforces the pattern. Of the 36.4% of students who took out cover at any point, 47.9% of all loss events still landed on someone with no cover for that specific risk, and 11,300 students were caught out at least once. The Financial Services Commission’s (FSC) 2024 Money & You: Managing Risk Through Challenging Times report provides the adult parallel: just 41% of New Zealanders currently hold life insurance and 39% hold health insurance, leaving a significant portion of the population exposed to financial loss from unexpected events. Teenagers with complete freedom of choice and immediate feedback on consequences converge on the same gap the industry has spent years trying to close. Banqer chief executive Simon Brown (pictured right) said the simulation is designed to create the kind of learning that only comes from direct experience. “There is no lesson on earth that beats finding out the hard way. The trick is arranging for the hard way to happen somewhere it doesn’t matter, with virtual money in Banqer rather than in the real world,” he said.
The finding most directly relevant to advisers concerns not whether students bought cover, but how they bought it. Of those who purchased income protection, 21.2% selected a policy that cost more and covered less than a directly comparable alternative. Of students who bought only one type of cover, 73.4% chose medical over income protection – a preference that mirrors documented patterns in the adult market, where income protection consistently carries lower uptake than medical cover despite representing the larger financial exposure for most working-age households. Income protection is also the product where adviser-led structuring makes the most material difference to client outcomes, given the complexity of benefit periods, stand-down periods, and agreed versus indemnity value decisions that self-directed buyers are least equipped to navigate. Of students holding medical cover, 59.6% had a policy with a stated gap – covering either everyday care or surgery, but not both. Brown acknowledged the parallel directly. “Working out which policy is actually the better deal is a hard skill. Plenty of adults get that wrong with real money. These students are practising it at 15, which is exactly when you'd want them doing it,” he said.
Partners Life distributes its products through financial advisers, making its involvement in an insurance education programme particularly relevant to the wider question of how younger consumers will engage with professional advice. The Banqer module introduces students to personal risk insurance and the consequences of different coverage decisions, potentially giving future consumers earlier exposure to concepts they may later encounter when seeking financial advice. Michael Weston (pictured left), chief executive of Partners Life, framed it in those terms. “This programme provides a way for students to explore those choices and see the consequences of different decisions in a safe environment. It also highlights the value of getting expert advice, because when it comes to protecting what matters most, informed decisions are usually better decisions,” he said.
The timing of the data release carries forward-looking significance. Financial education is set to be embedded as a core element of the refreshed social sciences curriculum for Year 1-10 students, with compulsory implementation scheduled for 2027, as announced by Education Minister Erica Stanford. Topics will include currency basics, budgeting, GST calculations, and compound interest, with practical applications including shopping, saving, and understanding debt taught at high school level.
The FSC’s 2024 report found a significant generational gap in understanding insurance, with Gen Z respondents approximately three times less likely than Baby Boomers and Pre-Boomers to know about the limitations of insurance. The 2027 mandate is a direct policy response to that disparity. Adviser businesses and insurers that engage with school-age financial education now are positioning ahead of a structural shift in the baseline knowledge of consumers entering the market – a cohort that, if the Banqer data holds, will arrive at the advice conversation already aware that uninsured losses are consequential and that policy selection without guidance produces avoidable errors. Brown put the underlying mechanism plainly. “In the real world that lesson turns up when you’re 40, and it turns up with an invoice attached. Not by being told. By doing it, getting something wrong somewhere safe, and turning up to the real decision having already been there once,” Brown said.
