Continuation Options

A continuation option enables you to continue your life insurance and other cover from your employer’s plan when you leave service, without any assessment of your health.

If you are insured under an AIA workplace insurance plan with your employer, and you are either leaving service or you have left service within the last 45 days (or in the last 60 days in some plans), then you will likely have a continuation option under the plan. This means that you are able to take out an insurance policy directly with AIA, up to the amount of cover you had under your employer’s plan, on favourable terms.

The Value of a Continuation Option

Continuation options are valuable. They enable you to take out insurance cover without undergoing any medical examinations or tests, or answering any health questions. All you need do is to complete a simple online form to apply for your cover. This means that any medical condition or state of health which you may have developed after obtaining cover under your employer’s plan is disregarded when you exercise your continuation option.

Continuation options are particularly valuable if you gained admission to your employer’s plan under the plan’s automatic acceptance terms. This means that any medical condition or state of health which you may have developed both before and after joining your employer’s plan is disregarded when you exercise your continuation option. In other words, no medical condition or state of health which you may have developed in your entire lifetime can be considered when you apply to continue your cover.

Important Information

Any continuation option which you may obtain is subject to all of the terms and conditions set out in your employer’s workplace insurance policy.
In particular, for any continuation option which you exercise, AIA will issue an individual policy without further evidence of health at the rate of premium then in use by AIA for such policy having regard to any conditions of membership under your employer’s workplace insurance policy, your age, gender and smoker status, your new occupation, the type of insurance you select and any particular hazard attributable to circumstances other than health.
This website does not provide personalised advice, and it takes no account of your personal insurance needs or circumstances. In particular, the information in this website is not personalised financial advice for the purposes of the Financial Advisers Act 2008 and should not be relied upon in making a decision about insurance.

AIA New Zealand Limited has been given an AA (Very Strong) insurer financial strength rating by Fitch Ratings, an approved rating agency. View details

AIA New Zealand Limited has been given an AA (Very Strong)¹ insurer financial strength rating by Fitch Ratings, an approved rating agency. A rating of AA means AIA New Zealand Limited has a very strong capacity to meet policyholder and contractual obligations.

Rating Scale

Secure	Vulnerable
AAA (Exceptionally Strong)	BB (Moderately Weak)
AA (Very Strong)	B (Weak)
A (Strong)	CCC (Very Weak)
BBB (Good)	CC (Extremely Weak)
	C (Distressed)

Note: “+” or “-” may be appended to a rating to indicate the relative position of a credit within the rating category. Such suffixes are not added to ratings in the AAA category or to ratings below the CCC category.

Footnotes

Rating affirmed by Fitch Ratings on 18 December 2023. See https://www.fitchratings.com/entity/aia-new-zealand-limited-96681083.

The Multi-Benefit Discount levels and eligibility criteria are summarised below.

Eligible Policies

The Multi-Benefit Discount only applies to AIA Living insurance policies and benefits (e.g. Life Cover, Critical Conditions, Progressive Care, Income Protection, Total Permanent Disablement, Family Protection).

AIA Private Health policies are not eligible for the Multi-Benefit Discount.

Qualifying for the Discount

The discount is determined for each person separately. To qualify for the discount, you must have life insurance plus at least one other eligible benefit, subject to minimum cover criteria specified below.

Existing Sovereign TotalCareMax and AIA Real benefits may count towards the eligibility criteria required to qualify for the discount, but these policies will not receive the discount.

For the purposes of determining eligibility, benefits are grouped into the following categories:

Category	Benefits
Mandatory Category	Life insurance $100,000+
Optional Category A	Trauma insurance $75,000+
Optional Category B	Permanent disability insurance $75,000+
Optional Category C	Income protection insurance $24,000+ per annum

Mandatory Category

Life insurance of at least $100,000 comprised of:

a. Life Cover; or
b. Family Protection; or
c. Accidental Death; or
d. A combination of any of the above benefits.

For the purposes of determining eligibility based on Family Protection, the amount of Family Protection cover will be converted to an equivalent lump sum amount. For example, Family Protection cover of $1,033 per month for a fixed term of 10 years is equivalent to a lump sum of $100,000.

Optional Category A

Trauma insurance of at least $75,000 comprised of:

a. Critical Conditions; or
b. Progressive Care; or
c. A combination of the above benefits.

Optional Category B

Permanent disability insurance of at least $75,000 comprised of:

a. Total Permanent Disablement.

Optional Category C

Income protection insurance of at least $24,000 per annum comprised of:

a. Income Protection; or
b. Mortgage Protection; or
c. Start-Up Income Protection; or
d. A combination of any of the above benefits.

Determining the Discount Level

The level of the discount will be determined as follows:

Categories	Discount
Mandatory Category + 1 Optional Category	10.0%
Mandatory Category + 2 Optional Categories	12.5%
Mandatory Category + 3 Optional Categories	15.0%

Examples

Assuming the minimum cover criteria are met, the following discount rates would apply:

• Life Cover + Critical Conditions: 10%.
• Life Cover + Income Protection: 10%.
• Family Protection + Progressive Care: 10%.
• Life Cover + Critical Conditions + Income Protection: 12.5%.
• Life Cover + Critical Conditions + Total Permanent Disablement + Income Protection: 15%.
• Critical Conditions + Income Protection: No discount (No benefits from the Mandatory Category).

Applying the Discount

The discount will be applied to all eligible AIA Living benefits, including other benefits that do not count towards the eligibility criteria such as Redundancy and Waiver of Premium.

The discount will not be applied to the policy fee (if any) or per mille premium loadings (if any).

Before your policy is issued, AIA will confirm the level of discount that you are eligible for. Your premiums will be adjusted to reflect any changes in this discount.

If the amount of cover and/or number of benefits you hold with AIA changes, AIA will re-calculate the discount and adjust your premium for your next billing due date.

Please refer to the Multi-Benefit Discount eligibility rules available at aia.co.nz for more information.

AIA reserves the right (subject to any applicable law) to cancel or modify the Multi-Benefit Discount for new and/or existing customers by posting updated Terms and Conditions at www.aia.co.nz. If AIA stops offering the discount to existing customers, you will be notified at least 90 days before the change.

Continuation Options

The Value of a Continuation Option

Discounts and Promotions