Tower is Canstar’s Car Insurer of the Year: 2022

Congratulations to Tower, for taking out Canstar’s prestigious Insurer of the Year | Car Insurance Award for the second consecutive year.

Whatever type of car you drive, car insurance provides peace of mind should an accident occur. And you don’t even have to be behind the wheel for car insurance to come to the rescue.

Unfortunately, car crime and anonymous car park dings and scrapes are all part of life on the road. But with the correct level of cover from the right provider, car insurance can help ease the financial burden and worry of a distressing auto incident.

However, while Canstar’s research for our 2022 car insurance awards reveals that the majority of insured drivers (86%) have comprehensive insurance, far fewer (19%) have actively researched if there is a better car insurance deal out there.

Many people are put off researching a better car insurance deal because of the hassle of comparing different providers and the complicated procedure of obtaining quotes. But that’s where Canstar can help. Our research does all of the hard work for you.

The Canstar Car Insurance Star Ratings use a sophisticated and unique ratings methodology that compares price and features across Comprehensive car insurance products.

We then award the best products our 5-Star ratings for Outstanding Value Car Insurance, and the best insurer in the market our prestigious award for Insurer of the Year | Car Insurance. This recognises the insurer that delivers consumers outstanding value through its products, services and levels of customer satisfaction.

This year, our expert panel’s research covered 11 providers and policies, across six consumer profiles:

For the customer service element of the award, car insurance policyholders are asked to rate their satisfaction with their insurer across seven key areas:

And on the results of our research, Tower is the winner of our Insurer of the Year Award 2022.

Tower

Tower is a Kiwi born-and-bred company that’s been insuring Kiwis for over 150 years. Tower offers a high level of cover with competitive premiums, as well as some great benefits. In this year’s Outstanding Value Ratings it scores top 5-Star awards across four of the six age groups:

• Under 25: female driver
• 25-29 driver
• 30-49 driver
• 50+ driver

What cover does Tower provide?

Tower offers customers a choice of three car insurance policies: Comprehensive; Third Party, Fire & Theft; and Third Party cover.

All of Tower’s car insurance policies provide cover for legal liability, and damage caused to your vehicle by an uninsured vehicle (policy limits apply). Tower also offers a no-claims benefit on all its policies, so if you don’t make any insurance claims, you can expect lower premiums.

Additionally, Tower offers its customers optional benefits, such as access to its 24-hour RoadWise roadside assistance and a windscreen excess buyout.

Tower’s Comprehensive cover:

Tower’s most comprehensive cover includes:

Tower’s Third Party, Fire & Theft cover:

Tower’s Third Party, Fire & Theft policy offers less cover than its comprehensive policy, but is a great option to save on premiums. It could be ideal if you feel your vehicle is not worth insuring fully, as it provides cover should you damage others’ property.

Some of its benefits include:

Tower’s Third Party cover:

Tower’s cheapest policy offers customers legal liability cover, protecting them from the cost of repairing others’ property. In most cases, it does not cover the cost to repair your vehicle. However, if your vehicle is damaged by an uninsured vehicle, it provides cover up to $4000.

What makes Tower Car Insurance different?

All of Tower’s policies are awarded the WriteMark Plain Language standard, meaning you don’t have to worry about wordy and confusing documents. Furthermore, Tower offers a discount of up to 20% as part of its multi-policy discount scheme. So, if you take out several policies with Tower Insurance, you can expect to save on your premiums.

Tower also offers the ability to earn one Airpoints Dollar for every $100 spent on your premium, and a range of great online resources. Its MyTower site makes managing your insurance easy, and its innovative GoCarma driving app rewards you with lower excess fees.

Click here for more on our Insurer of the Year Award

About the author of this page

This report was written by Canstar’s Editor, Bruce Pitchers. Bruce began his career writing about pop culture, and spent a decade in sports journalism. More recently, he’s applied his editing and writing skills to the world of finance and property. Prior to Canstar, he worked as a freelancer, including for The Australian Financial Review, the NZ Financial Markets Authority, and for real estate companies on both sides of the Tasman.