AA Health Insurance: Health Insurance Award Winner 2025
Congratulation to AA Health Insurance, the winner of Canstar's Most Satisfied Customers Health Insurance Award 2025.
AA Health Insurance's award win comes on the back of a great set of ratings from its health insurance customers in our survey. Across all six award categories, from Overall Satisfaction to Value for Money, AA Health Insurance earns top 5-Star ratings from its many contented customers.
Editor's Notes
AA Health Insurance offers three plans, each providing different levels of cover:
- Everyday
- Private Hospital
- Private Hospital & Specialist
On all plans, a 5% AA Member discount is available when you provide a valid AA Membership number for you or someone named on your policy.
Everyday
The most affordable option, Everyday health insurance cover includes:
- Dental
- GP consultations
- Physiotherapy
- Glasses and contact lenses
Under the Everyday policy, AA will reimburse you 60% of the cost of the above expenses up to $900 (benefit limits apply).
You can take out Everyday Cover by itself, or in combination with Private Hospital, or Private Hospital and Specialist, to cover both the everyday medical expenses and the bigger stuff too.
Private Hospital
This covers diagnostics, surgeries and treatment in private hospitals, including:
- Cancer treatments: $300,000 for surgery, $200,000 for treatment at hospital, $10,000 for treatment at home and non-PHARMAC cancer treatments
- Hospital diagnostics and specialist consultations, up to $300,000 p.a.
- Non-surgical hospitalisation, up to $200,000 p.a.
- Parental accommodation
- Post-hospital home nursing
- Physiotherapy and therapeutic care
- Pre-existing cover for newborns
- Specialist skin lesion surgery
- Ambulance transfer
- Choice of excess options
There is also the option to add non-PHARMAC Plus, which subsidises the cost of non-PHARMAC-funded medication up to $300,000 p.a.
Editor's Notes
UniMed offers three different health insurance policies:
UniCare Advantage
Covers a wide range of health costs, including 80% of eligible surgery costs. Offers a contribution towards some everyday health costs, as well as specialist consultations and diagnostic testing. Benefits include:
- Surgery costs are reimbursed at 80%, up to $100,000 per admission
- GPs, prescriptions and laboratory tests
- Physiotherapist, osteopath, podiatrist
- Benefits for loyal members
Health Positive
Offers customers with a choice of 50% or 80% reimbursement across everyday medical costs up to $10,000 each year. Designed to help manage regular health bills, it includes:
- Dental and vision care
- GP consultations
- Physiotherapy and chiropractors
- A wide range of other benefits
- Pre-existing conditions covered, subject to Ts&Cs
This health insurance policy does not include cover for surgery.
Hospital Select
UniMed's most extensive plan. It is designed to cover unexpected illnesses requiring surgery or hospitalisation.
Benefits include:
- 100% reimbursement for eligible surgery costs
- Cancer care
- Imaging, including CT, MRI, PET and other high-tech imaging
- Specialists and tests
The plan offers optional benefits that expand to include natural healthcare, dental work and optometry.
Editor's Notes
Southern Cross offers customers four different health insurance plans which, it claims, reflect the various stages, budgets and cover that Kiwis require.
The health insurer also offers two shared-cover plans, which offer a contribution to medical expenses in certain situations. The specific policies include:
- Regular Care (shared cover)
- Kiwi Care (shared cover)
- Health Essentials
- Wellbeing One
- Wellbeing Two
- Ultra Care
Regular Care
Sharing the costs of healthcare between the customer and the insurer, Southern Cross's Regular Care health insurance policy offers customers a contribution towards cancer care, surgical procedure and consultations, diagnostic imaging, tests, recovery and day-to-day healthcare treatment.
Kiwi Care
Offers customers part-payment for healthcare received. This policy provides a contribution towards cancer care, surgical procedures and consultations, diagnostic imaging, tests and some recovery.
Health Essentials
A day-to-day health plan covering 75% of medical costs including consultations with a general practitioner, dentist, optometrist, physiotherapist, dietitian/nutritionist, chiropractor and more for a maximum combined value of $1650 per year.
Wellbeing One
A surgical and healthcare plan that reimburses expenses, up to a specified policy limit, for eligible healthcare services. Some of these services include:
- Cancer care
- Unlimited surgical procedures and consultations within six months of a related eligible surgical treatment
- Diagnostic imaging
- Tests and recovery within six months of related treatment
Wellbeing Two
A comprehensive surgical and healthcare plan that reimburses customers for 100% of expenses for eligible healthcare services. This plan includes:
- Cancer care
- Unlimited surgical procedures and consultations at any time
- Diagnostic imaging
- Tests and recovery at any time
- Obstetrics allowance (after one year)
Ultra Care
A premium surgical, healthcare and day-to-day plan, the Ultra Care health insurance policy offers reimbursement of expenses for eligible healthcare services. This policy includes coverage for pre-existing health conditions and includes:
- Cancer care
- Unlimited surgical procedures and consultations
- Choose your own specialist
- Qualifying pre-existing conditions covered after three years of continuous cover
- Diagnostic imaging and tests at any time
- Obstetrics allowance (after one year)
Editor's Notes
AIA offers two health insurance policies:
Private Health
Provides comprehensive cover for a wide range of medical conditions, covering costs like specialist consultations, diagnostic imaging and testing, hospitalisation and surgeries.
Policy details:
- Unlimited surgery claims
- $500,000 limit for cancer treatments
- Cover for non-Pharmac subsidised Medsafe indicated cancer chemotherapy drugs
- $500,000 for medical hospitalisation
- $200,000 for major diagnostic imaging and tests.
As an optional benefit, you can upgrade to AIA's Private Health Plus policy, which adds:
- An additional $100,000 for diagnostic imaging and tests that are not related to treatment or surgery
- Up to $1500 to help cover pregnancy, maternity and infertility costs
- Health screening allowance, including, but not limited to, bone, bowel, breast, heart and skin screening
Cancer Care
Specialised health insurance that helps cover costs for cancer diagnosis, treatment and recovery.
Policy details:
- Unlimited cancer surgery claims
- $500,000 limit for cancer treatments
- Cover for non-Pharmac subsidised Medsafe indicated cancer chemotherapy drugs
- Cancer health screening
Editor's Notes
nib offers its customers a choice of either Standard or Premium cover across the following plans:
Everyday Plan
nib's two Everyday plans are designed to contribute towards your day-to-day healthcare costs.
- Standard: claim back 60% of costs
- Premium: claim back 80% of costs
The two levels of cover offer:
- Dental treatment, including check-ups, fillings, braces and crowns
- New glasses and contacts
- Physio, chiro & osteo
- GP visits
- Acupuncture, massage, vaccinations & traditional Chinese medicine
Hospital Plan
nib's Hospital Plan also has two levels of cover, Standard and Premium. They are designed to help cover big health costs, such as surgery or cancer treatment. Both include up to $300,000 surgical benefits/up to $200,000 non-surgical.
The two levels of cover offer:
- Cancer treatment
- Specialist consultations
- Extraction of impacted or unerupted teeth (after 12 months cover)
- Major and minor surgery, such as hip and knee replacements, skin lesions and GP surgery
- Diagnostic investigations, including MRI scans, x-rays and CT angiograms
Editor's Notes
Partners Life offers two health insurance policies:
- Private Medical Cover
- Specific Condition Cover and Hospital Cash Cover
Partners Life insurance is designed to be tailored to your specific needs, and the above policies can be mixed and matched with other Partners Life policies, such as Trauma Cover and Income Cover, for a more comprehensive package.
Private Medical Cover
Private Medical Cover funds quick access to, and a choice of, treatment in the private medical sector, meaning you can get the best care without having to wait for the public system.
Policy details:
- Surgical treatments (inpatient and outpatient)
- Accommodation and transport costs for the life assured and support person
- Drug or radiotherapy treatment
- Medical tourism costs
- Medsafe-approved drug costs
Specific Condition and Hospital Cash Cover
These products are exclusive to Partners Life, and take a different approach to claims. These products pay a small, defined amount of money if you suffer a specific health event, or require a specific medical treatment.
Other health insurance providers
Not all brands in the market qualify for our ratings (based on minimum survey sample size), but that doesn’t mean they’re not worth considering. Here is another brand to check out before making a purchase decision:
- ASB
ASB offers two health insurance policies:
- ASB Private Health
- ASB Private Health Plus
ASB Private Health
Includes cover for surgery and hospitalisation, cancer treatment and supporting diagnostic procedures:
- Unlimited surgical benefit, subject to reasonable charges
- Flexible overseas treatment options.
- Cover for major diagnostic imaging tests up to $200,000
- Cover for hospitalisation up to $500,000 per year
- Different excess options
ASB Private Health Plus
Covers the same as ASB Private Health, as well as offering additional features.
- Specialist consultations up to $10,000 per year
- Diagnostic imaging and tests up to $100,000 per year
- Pregnancy, maternity and infertility allowance up to $1500 per year after two years
- Health screening allowance: $500 every three years, after an initial waiting period of three years, or $750 every three years for eligible AIA Vitality members
