How Long Does It Take to Get Cover, and What Does the Medical Assessment Involve?

You can think of an insurer as a random person on the street. You walk up to them and say: I’ve got a great deal for you. I’ll pay you $1,500 a year, and in return you give me 350 times that if I die, and 50 times that if I get a stage 3 cancer, a heart attack, a stroke, or something similarly serious.

Sounds a bit crazy, right? But this is exactly what an insurer does. They take you, a person off the street, ask you a bunch of medical questions, and decide whether they’re comfortable saying yes. And they have to keep in mind that if you die in year one, they need hundreds of other people paying premiums who haven’t died, just to cover your claim, before they’ve paid a single salary or kept the lights on. When you think about it that way, it seems almost unfeasible.

The only reason it works is the assessment they do before saying yes. That assessment is called underwriting, and it’s the answer to both questions in the title: it’s what the medical process is, and it’s what decides how long your cover takes.

What actually happens when you apply

When you apply for life or health cover in New Zealand, the insurer’s job is to build an accurate picture of the risk they’re taking on. That means:

1. The application questions. You’ll answer questions about your health, family history, occupation, income, and lifestyle, including things like smoking, alcohol, and hobbies that involve leaving the ground or going fast. Answer these fully and honestly. What you disclose at this stage is the foundation the whole contract sits on.

2. Automatic assessment. Most insurers now run your answers through a digital underwriting engine first. If your health history is clean, the engine can often approve you on the spot, with no human ever touching the file.

3. Human underwriting. If something in your answers needs a closer look, a real underwriter picks it up. They might come back with follow-up questions, or ask for more detail on a condition you mentioned.

4. Doctor’s notes and tests. For a more complex history, the insurer may request notes from your GP. Depending on your age and the amount of cover, they can also ask for things like a blood test or a basic medical. This is normal, and the insurer typically arranges and pays for it.

So how long does it take?

There are really three speeds:

Instant to a couple of days. No health conditions, straightforward occupation, standard cover amounts. The digital engines are good, and a clean application can be approved before you’ve closed the browser tab.

Up to a week or so. Something needed a human look: a past condition, a higher cover amount, an occupation that raised an eyebrow. Still quick, just not instant.

A few weeks to a couple of months. The insurer has requested notes from your doctor. Here’s the honest truth about this stage: the delay usually isn’t the insurer, it’s the GP practice. Medical centres in New Zealand handle these requests around everything else they do, and some take weeks to send notes back. If your application is sitting in limbo, this is almost always why.

One thing worth asking about while you wait: many insurers provide some form of interim accidental cover between application and approval, so you’re not completely exposed during the gap. An adviser can confirm what applies to your application.

What the outcome can look like

Underwriting isn’t a simple yes or no. Depending on what the assessment finds, an insurer can offer:

• Standard terms. The premium and cover as quoted. This is the most common outcome.
• A loading. Cover offered, but at a higher premium to reflect a specific risk.
• An exclusion. Cover offered, but with a particular condition carved out, sometimes with the option to review it later.
• A deferral. Not yet. Perhaps you’re awaiting test results, or a condition is too recent to assess. You can usually reapply once things have settled.
• A decline. Rare, but it happens. Worth knowing that different insurers can reach different decisions on the same history, which is one of the better arguments for going through an adviser who knows how each one tends to assess things.

Why all this effort is actually good news

Here’s the part people miss when they’re grumbling about medical questions: underwriting done properly at application time is what gives you confidence at claim time.

Because the insurer assessed your health before offering the contract, the hard questions have already been asked and answered. When a claim comes, there’s far less room for surprises, because the insurer went in with eyes open. A policy that was easy to get because nobody checked anything is a policy where the checking happens when you can least afford a dispute.

How to speed the process up

• Have your medical history handy before you start, including rough dates, diagnoses, and treatment for anything you’ll need to disclose
• Know your GP’s details, and let the practice know a request may be coming if you have a complex history
• Answer every question fully the first time, since partial answers create follow-up questions and follow-up questions create weeks
• Respond quickly when the insurer or your adviser comes back to you
• Don’t cancel any existing cover until the new policy is confirmed in force

If you’re ready to see what cover could look like for you, get started here and we’ll match you with a licensed adviser who can walk you through it.

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This article provides general information only and does not constitute financial advice. Your individual circumstances have not been considered. Please speak with a licensed financial adviser before making decisions about insurance.