Is landlord insurance more expensive than house insurance?

It generally covers more, because it adds rental-specific risks a house policy was not written for — loss of rent, tenant damage, meth contamination, landlord liability. Whether that translates into a higher premium for your particular property depends on all the other rating factors. What is certain is that running an owner-occupier policy on a tenanted house to save money is a false economy: Vero states you must specify to your insurer that the property is tenanted.

Does raising my excess lower the premium?

Yes, and insurers say so openly — AMP publishes that you can reduce your premium by increasing your excess, while noting you will pay more at claim time. But there is a second effect nobody advertises: under the Residential Tenancies Act a tenant's liability for careless damage is capped at four weeks' rent or your excess, whichever is lower. A higher excess can therefore cap what you recover from a tenant.

What sum insured should I use for a rental?

AMP publishes the principle on its own site: insure for the cost of rebuilding, and the sum insured should include not just labour and materials but demolition, debris removal and professional fees. It is a rebuild figure, not a market value and not what you paid.

Why is a Wellington or Christchurch property quoted differently?

Natural hazard exposure is a rating factor, and it varies sharply across New Zealand. We are not going to publish regional premium figures, because no insurer publishes them and inventing a range would be worse than saying nothing. A broker with access to several insurers will see the actual spread for your address.

If you let

What landlord insurance costs — and what moves it

We are not going to print an average, because no insurer publishes one and the figures in circulation are quote data dressed up as a market rate. Here is what actually determines your number.

The short version

No NZ insurer or regulator publishes an average landlord premium. We do not print one.
The sum insured is a rebuild cost — AMP publishes that it should include demolition, debris removal and professional fees.
Raising the excess lowers the premium (AMP says so directly) but can also cap what you recover from a tenant.
Several covers landlords assume are standard are optional — AMP publishes loss of rent as optional and home-only.
An owner-occupier policy on a tenanted house is not a saving. Vero says you must declare the property is tenanted.

Why there is no number on this page

“How much does landlord insurance cost in NZ” is the most-asked question in this whole subject, and it does not have an honest published answer. No New Zealand insurer publishes an average premium. Neither does any regulator. The ranges that circulate come from comparison sites reporting their own quote data, which is a different thing from a market average and tells you nothing about your property.

Printing one anyway would make this page rank and make it useless. So instead here is the list of things that genuinely move the figure — which is what you would need to know to interpret a quote in any case.

What moves the premium

The rebuild sum insured

The single largest input. And it is a rebuild figure, not a market value. AMP publishes the principle on its own site: your investment property should be insured for the cost of rebuilding it, and the sum insured should cover not just labour and materials but the associated costs — demolition, debris removal and professional fees.

Under-setting it does lower the premium. It also leaves you short in exactly the event the policy exists for.

The excess — and its hidden second effect

AMP publishes plainly that you can reduce your premium by increasing your excess, while being clear you will pay more if you claim. That is the trade-off everyone knows about.

Here is the one almost nobody factors in. Under the Residential Tenancies Act, a tenant who causes careless damage is liable up to four weeks' rent or your insurance excess, whichever is lower. So a higher excess does not only raise your own cost at claim time — where it is the lower of the two figures, it also raises the tenant's ceiling; where four weeks' rent is lower, your extra excess buys you nothing in recovery at all. The excess is a tenant-recovery decision as well as a premium decision. Worked through here.

Location and natural hazard exposure

A rating factor that varies sharply across the country. We are not publishing regional figures — no insurer publishes them, and a made-up range would be worse than silence. A broker with several insurers on their agency list will see the real spread for your actual address, which is one of the more concrete reasons to use one.

Which benefits are optional

This is where quotes stop being comparable. AMP publishes that on its landlord products loss of rent is optional and available on the home product only, and that malicious damage is optional on both. Initio, by contrast, publishes loss of rent as automatically included at $20,000 and landlord contents as automatically included at $20,000 that cannot be reduced.

Those are two very different products, and a cheaper premium on one may simply reflect that it is not carrying a cover the other includes. That is the whole argument for reading structure before price.

The building and the tenancy

Age and construction, roof and wiring, whether the property is furnished (which brings landlord contents into play), the tenancy type, and whether it is self-managed or with a property manager. Several insurers attach conduct obligations to landlord cover, and how you manage the tenancy is part of the risk they are pricing. More on those obligations.

Your claims history

As with any general insurance. Worth remembering alongside the per-event excess point: small claims that barely clear the excess can cost more over time than they return.

How to get a number you can trust

Establish the rebuild sum insured properly, not from memory or market value.
Decide the excess deliberately, with the tenant-recovery cap in view.
List which benefits you actually want included rather than optional.
Then get quotes on that same specification — otherwise you are comparing prices for different things.

That last step is the one a broker does for you, and it is the reason a quote from one direct insurer is not a market test.

Questions people actually ask

How much does landlord insurance cost in NZ?: No New Zealand insurer or regulator publishes an average, so any single figure you see is someone's quote data rather than a market average. What we can tell you is what drives it: the rebuild sum insured, the excess you pick, the location and its natural hazard exposure, the age and construction of the building, which optional benefits you add, your claims history, and whether the property is furnished.
Is landlord insurance more expensive than house insurance?: It generally covers more, because it adds rental-specific risks a house policy was not written for — loss of rent, tenant damage, meth contamination, landlord liability. Whether that translates into a higher premium for your particular property depends on all the other rating factors. What is certain is that running an owner-occupier policy on a tenanted house to save money is a false economy: Vero states you must specify to your insurer that the property is tenanted.
Does raising my excess lower the premium?: Yes, and insurers say so openly — AMP publishes that you can reduce your premium by increasing your excess, while noting you will pay more at claim time. But there is a second effect nobody advertises: under the Residential Tenancies Act a tenant's liability for careless damage is capped at four weeks' rent or your excess, whichever is lower. A higher excess can therefore cap what you recover from a tenant.
What sum insured should I use for a rental?: AMP publishes the principle on its own site: insure for the cost of rebuilding, and the sum insured should include not just labour and materials but demolition, debris removal and professional fees. It is a rebuild figure, not a market value and not what you paid.
Why is a Wellington or Christchurch property quoted differently?: Natural hazard exposure is a rating factor, and it varies sharply across New Zealand. We are not going to publish regional premium figures, because no insurer publishes them and inventing a range would be worse than saying nothing. A broker with access to several insurers will see the actual spread for your address.
Do optional benefits make much difference?: They can, because several of the covers landlords assume are standard are optional. AMP publishes that loss of rent is an optional benefit and available on the home product only, and that malicious damage is optional on both products. Comparing a policy with those included against one without them is not comparing like with like.

Where this comes from

The excess/premium trade-off, the rebuild sum insured principle and the optional-benefit structure are from AMP; the included-benefit structure from Initio; the tenanted-declaration requirement from Vero — all retrieved 8 September 2026. The liability cap is from Tenancy Services (MBIE) under the Residential Tenancies Act 1986. We could not establish an average premium from any insurer or official source and have not published one.

Get this looked at properly, by someone who does it for a living

Tell us about the property and we will put you in front of a registered local broker who places landlord risks. They will tell you what the wordings really say — including where you are already covered and do not need to spend anything. No sales pitch, no hard sell.

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