Vero Stretches Homeowners’ Insurance with SumExtra

Media Release

11 February 2015

Vero Stretches Homeowners’ Insurance with SumExtra

Today Vero announced an industry-leading policy benefit called SumExtra that will extend homeowners’ insurance cover in the event of either a natural disaster or other insured loss.

SumExtra offers customers who have personalised their sum insured based on an estimated cost to rebuild their home, additional cover in the event of a loss even if those costs exceed their sum insured amount.

“For many New Zealand families, their greatest financial asset is their home,” said Gary Dransfield, Vero Chief Executive Officer.

“We know the change to sum insured hasn’t been easy for New Zealanders and it concerns us that our research shows around 50 per cent of New Zealand homeowners have not yet taken the steps to measure the cost of rebuilding their home - something that is critical to ensuring they are not underinsured.

“SumExtra extends and reinforces Vero’s desire to protect our customers by ensuring homeowners have additional insurance cover and minimise their risk of being caught out by underinsurance,” said Mr Dransfield.

SumExtra offers additional insurance cover of up to 10 per cent of the sum insured to customers affected by a natural disaster and provides total replacement cover to customers who experience any other insured loss. To qualify, customers have to establish an accurate and personalised sum insured based on a cost estimate from either the industry recognised Cordell Residential Valuer or a suitably qualified professional.

Many Vero customers will automatically be eligible for the SumExtra benefit.

“We’ve tried to make this as easy as possible for our customers,” said Dransfield. “We want to encourage our policyholders to understand the true value of their homes – just as we do for their contents insurance – and to review their default sum insured in order to ensure they have adequate cover should the worst happen.”

“We recognise that building costs can vary and we want our policyholders to know that their policy can stretch to cover them. SumExtra means our customers who take steps to personalise their sum insured can expect it to go further in the event of a major loss.”

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