New Zealand · renting and letting
Two sides of the same front door.
Two completely different policies.
Your landlord's insurance does not cover your belongings. Your contents insurance does not cover their building. Almost every argument between a renter and a landlord in this country starts with somebody assuming otherwise.
We explain how each side actually works — from the Residential Tenancies Act and the insurers' own wordings, not from marketing — and then put you in front of a registered local broker if you want someone to look at your situation properly.
Renters' cover
Your stuff, and your liability for the place you live in. What the law makes you responsible for, and what a policy will and will not pick up.
Start here →I own a rentalLandlord cover
The building, the rent, the tenant damage, the meth rules, and the disclosure obligations that sit on you whether you have read them or not.
Start here →The one thing worth knowing before anything else
If a tenant or their guest causes careless damage to a rental, the tenant is liable — but only up to four weeks' rent, or the landlord's insurance excess, whichever is lower. That cap is in the Residential Tenancies Act. It is why a landlord's excess is a number the tenant has a legal right to know, and why it has to be written into the tenancy agreement.
Deliberate damage is a different matter entirely, and the cap does not apply to it. Most of the confusion in this area is people applying one rule to the other situation.
If you rent
Written for tenants, flatmates and boarders.
The four weeks’ rent cap
Break something by accident and you are liable — but only up to a point. The law caps it, and most renters have never been told where.
Personal liability
The part of a contents policy that matters most in a rental, and the part almost nobody reads.
Flatting and shared houses
Flatmates are not tenants under the Act. That changes who is liable for what — and who a policy actually covers.
How much cover you need
How to arrive at a sum insured that is not a guess, and why under-insuring quietly costs you at claim time.
If you let
Written for private landlords, from one property to a portfolio.
The 2026 meth rules
15µg and 30µg thresholds, 7-day and 2-day notice, $7,200 and $50,000 penalties. What changed and what your policy now has to do.
Loss of rent
Two different things sold under one name — rent lost because the house is wrecked, and rent lost because the tenant stopped paying.
Careless vs deliberate damage
The distinction the whole claim turns on, and where the tenant’s liability stops and yours starts.
Your insurance disclosure duty
You must put your insurance status and your excess in the tenancy agreement. Getting it wrong is an unlawful act.
We do not sell insurance
We are not an insurer and not a comparison engine. We explain how cover works, and we introduce you to one registered local broker — not a panel, not a pool.
Everything here has a source
Rules come from the legislation. Product facts come from the insurer's own page, dated. Where we could not verify something, we say so instead of guessing. How we source this site.
Sometimes the answer is no
Insurance is often sensible and occasionally unnecessary. A broker who tells you that you are already covered has done their job. That is the sort we introduce you to.