A new MartinJenkins report commissioned by the Financial Services Council says private health and life insurance already function as a complementary pillar of New Zealand's public health system, as fresh polling finds 55% of Kiwis want government to prioritise greater public-private collaboration as healthcare demand grows.
The report frames insurance less as an alternative to public healthcare and more as capacity the system already relies on - a distinction FSC chief executive Kirk Hope says matters as pressure builds on both sides. Insurers paid $1.368 billion in life claims and $2.545 billion in health claims in the year to September 2025, according to separate FSC figures.
But the capacity argument runs into an affordability one. The average health insurance claim paid per member has risen 75% since 2021, reaching $1,921 in 2025, while policy terminations have climbed from 7% in 2022 to 9% last year - meaning the system is leaning more heavily on private cover just as rising costs push some households out of it.
Hope said the trend lines are moving in the same direction across the board: "claims are rising, treatment costs are rising, and households are feeling it."
The FSC's election manifesto pairs the capacity argument with specific policy asks, including removing fringe benefit tax from employer-provided health and life cover and expanding shared and co-funded healthcare models. Read more: NZ health insurance lapses are becoming a broker problem
For brokers, the polling result is arguably the more useful data point than the policy asks themselves: with a majority of the public now open to formal public-private collaboration, the case for positioning health cover around faster access and system capacity, rather than personal risk protection alone, has real public backing. That framing may land better with employer clients than a pure cost conversation, provided brokers can also address the affordability pressure the same report highlights.
