Bill Shock is the negative reaction a subscriber can experience if their phone/internet/power bill has unexpected charges. Bill shock can happen when, for example, a user changes their mobile phone, switches to a smart meter, or uses a mobile device while roaming without understanding the voice or data roaming charges involved.

In New Zealand:

• The Telecommunications Dispute Resolution (TDR) scheme deals with about 2,000 complaint per year of which approximately 640 relate to billing and credit issues.
• The Electricity and Gas Complaints Commissioner Scheme dealt with over 3,600 complaints last year of which over 1,600 related to billing complaints.

Until now there was just 2 ways to mitigate bill shock:

1. Choose a plan to avoid bill shock e.g. prepay, unlimited or data shaping (for internet)
2. Monitor frequently

Now you can protect yourself and your friends through PeerCover.  You'll be notified if anyone in your PeerGroup is experiencing bill shock, so you can avoid the same situation. Alternatively you may able to help them get off by letting them know what to say. If push comes to shove, the bill shock amount (and a small claims handling fee) will be shared amongst the whole PeerGroup - to spread the load.

Tangihanga is important: "Without the death ritual of tangihanga we're losing the real reason of why we have marae. It's about linking the dead with the living [and] with those yet to be born" Professor Paul Tapsell

Relying on koha to 100% fund the tangihanga may be possible, but in many cases it is not. Unexpected tangihanga costs can put your whanau under financial stress as costs can easily exceed $10,000. For instance:

1. The average cost of a funeral is between $6500 and $7000
   
2. Cost of repatriation from Brisbane is between $6,500 -$8.500
   
3. Food costs $66+ per person per day

There are various ways to fund the koha gap - here are 6 ways:

If you have the money, a funeral trust (1) may be the best way to go. The money won't get locked up in probate but the money is locked away until you die.

Insurance companies marketing might want you to believe Funeral Insurance (3) is the next best option, however you need to consider some caveats:

• It may take two year before you get full cover (death from illness, disease or suicide may be not be covered initially)
• If your can't pay your premiums, you may be left with nothing
• Premiums get used up by: insurance profits, insurance expenses (marketing etc) and paying other claims (likely to people you don't know)

You may want to consider other options...

If you are a member of a credit union such as ACU or NZCU you can opt-in to their bereavement fund (3). If any member of the fund dies, a small automatic payment (ranges from $2 to $4) is made from all other member. Depending on the number of fund members, the payout can be anywhere from $4,000 to $10,000.

If you want to be a bit more exclusive (bereavement fund membership is normally in the thousands) then you may want to consider Whanau cover (PeerCover). Like a bereavement fund:

• There is no initial period where cover is limited 
  
• You can take your money out whenever you want 

Unlike a bereavement fund:

• The payout is based on a multiple of your balance* where the cost is shared pro-rata from others in your PeerGroup (whanau). 
  
• There are no annual fees (or interest) just a $100 fee paid upon death, the rest of the money goes to you and your PeerGroup 
• You can see who else is in your PeerGroup and their balances - it is not anonymous. Importantly you will be notified of any claim, so you know where your money is going.
• PeerGroup members can, by majority, not accept new members or decline payouts (effectively reducing the payout multiple to 1)
  

* recommended multiples are:

(4) & (5) are pretty self-explanatory. Probably not the best options but still options.

If you are interested in Whanau Cover for your iwi, hapu, whanau or just friends - join up today.

If your smart phone, watch, tablet or laptop is faulty, then you may have protection under the . For accidental damaged, a bit of pre-planning is required:

1. You may want to buy a physical cover to reduce the likelihood of damage
2. You can check if it is insured under your contents policy (most policies automatically include items worth less than $1,500, noting that claiming for a mobile phone may push up your home insurance premium)
3. If you don't have contents policy then you can get phone insurance if you are on a post-paid plan e.g. vodafone, spark. 
4. Some manufacturer offer insurance (e.g. AppleCare+)

If you don't fall into the above four buckets or you are just looking for a more social way to cover your gadget then you may want to get Gadget Cover through PeerCover.

• PeerCover is not insurance nor a bank account, it is somewhere in between.
• To get covered you join a pool of fellow gadget lovers and deposit money through PeerCover. 
• The cost of any damage claims is shared amongst the PeerGroup i.e. pro-rata to each peer's balance
• The max claim payout is 3x one's balance
• You can take your money out any time (noting that this will also decrease your cover)
• PeerCover administers the claims and provide a recommendation to the PeerGroup but to keeps things fair the recommendation can be overturned by majority vote
• PeerCover administration fee is $100 per paid claim (also shared among the PeerGroup)

If you are interested in Gadget Cover, join-up today.

We figure you can plan ahead or work it out on the fly, but what do you think is the best way to fund your funeral?

Plan ahead:

1. 100% self-funded via a funeral trust (money locked away until you die)
2. Credit union bereavement clubs e.g ACU or NZCU (small auto-payments)
3. Funeral Insurance (premiums etc)

On the fly:

1. Family + donation (koha / PledgeMe etc)
2. Family + funeral loans e.g. SPLNZ
3. Funeral grant from the goverment or tangihanga funds e.g. Lake Taupo Forest Trust

A bit of both:

1. Crowdfund donations + PeerCover donation matching 

Cost sharing is an alternative to insurance in the US. So how does is work?

1. Primarily for medical costs 
2. Members commit to pay a certain amount each month towards any medical expenses that members in their group may have. 
3. The cost sharing organizations streamline members' donations and make sure they make it to other members who are in need that month. 
4. Members are generally required to examine costs prior to making health care decisions which keeps costs low.
5. Because this is not insurance, there is no guarantee that medical bills will be paid. 
6. There are rules or guidelines that provide for what types of expenses the membership will share and what types are not approved for sharing. 
7. The member base is sufficiently large that the fact that there is no guarantee is largely legal semantics.
8. Members who have common ethical or religious beliefs

But what about 'P2P Insurance'^ like PeerCover:

1. Primarily for car insurance but able to be adapted to other risks (pet, phone, health, house etc)
   
2. Members deposit monies which may pay for costs that members in their group may have
   
3. PeerCover streamline members' deposits and payment to other members who have claims
   
4. Members are expected to only claim for reasonable expenses as the group can vote down the payment (by majority only)
5. There is no guarantee that claims will be paid
6. There are rules around the maximum payment*
7. The member base is small but so are the risks taken (insurance excess or gaps in insurance cover) so the fact that there is no guarantee is not a big issue
8. Members who have common beliefs i.e. transparency will lead to better outcomes, no claim means no costs, fairness over fine print

^ P2P Insurance has different interpretations, some have no deposits but can call on members to fund losses, others use insurers to redistribute premium - not just to pay claims, expenses and profit but also to pay claims experience discounts.

* the smaller of member net loss after insurance, 3x the members deposit, the total of the PeerGroup deposits less the $100 claims administration fee

You may have heard this pearl of wisdom before but until recently most insurance companies only offered 'the works' for home insurance so your only only option was to buy expensive cover. This has now changed, well at least if you live in Queensland; IAG has recently launched a new product called InsureLite. Some of the key features are:

1. $5k or $10k franchise i.e. pays out your full loss as long as the loss is greater than $5k or $10k
   
2. Covers the roof over your head not the nice to haves (garages, sheds, pools, fences etc)
   
3. Pre-defined replacement options (in the case of total loss) to the value of $150,000 or $200,000
   

The third feature is effectively 'insuring off the plan' which has some great benefits:

• It is clear for both you and the insurer what you will get for your money which should, all other things being equal, mean you get a roof over your head faster
• You don't need to try guestimate your sum insured - after all estimating change in building codes, change in material costs, demand inflation following a catastrophe etc is far from straight forward even for professional estimators
  
• Insurer's can get benefit from scale because they are not rebuilding hundreds of different types of houses

We think InsureLite is a breath of fresh air. In order get the right balance of coverage and affordability just mix with a liberal amount of self-insuring and PeerCovering.

First published in Financing the Purchase of and Insurance Costs for a Shared Car by Janelle Orsi

Co-owning assets can come with some unwanted surprises. For instance for a sharing car lead to unexpected mechanic bills, accidents not or only partially covered by your insurer etc. Janelle Orsi advises a pre-agreed asset-sharing agreement should be used to cover these situations. But what if your co-ownee doesn't have the cash to pay their share?

If you don't have a pre-agreed asset-sharing agreement or if you just want to ensure that money doesn't become a problem, PeerCover can help. 

• PeerCover provides a way for both you and your co-ownee to save for potential surprises. 
• PeerCover's services also include an independent recommendation as to whether an expense should be paid from the shared pool - just in case there is a stand-off.
• If you want to know whether your co-owner is keeping up with payments, you can do a quick check online.

So if you are thinking about co-owning, think about PeerCover

First published by friendsurance 08/07/2015

In March 2011, the German Fintech company Friendsurance launched the first
worldwide peer - to-peer insurance.  The concept has now been adopted in the UK, France and New Zealand. The table below, takes a closer look at the four existing peer-to-peer insurance providers:

The FCA identified that the ‘add-on mechanism’ weakens consumers’ ability to discipline firms by shopping around and comparing products effectively. This in turn has implications for possible remedies. Baker et al have identified four ways regulators can reduce this market failure:

1. enhanced disclosure (which they explain doesn't work), 
2. a ban on the point of sale offer of add-on insurance, 
3. price regulation (commissions often capped at 20% but not insurance profits), and 
4. the creation of a new, on-line market (forcing sellers to show stand-alone competitor quotes)

If you don't want to wait for regulators and you dont fancy scouering Reddit for possible insurance solutions and providers (e.g. domestic travel insurance providers to cover collision damage waivers) you may want to consider PeerCover. PeerCover is a fair and transparent way get add-on cover without the exorbitant rates.

Citation
Baker, Tom and Siegelman, Peter, "“You Want Insurance with That?” Using Behavioral Economics to Protect Consumers from Add-on Insurance Products" (2013). Faculty Scholarship. Paper 441.
http://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/faculty_scholarship/441

Add-on Insurance Products 'protect' consumers against small losses. Consumers tend not to shop and hence Add-on Insurance Products are highly profitable for sellers:

• claims normally are 20% to 30% of premiums 
  
• commission are normally at least 20% and often more than 40% of premiums
• insurance company profits are consistently greater than 10% of premiums

Examples include the extended warranties sold with electronics and home appliances, mobile phone damage insurance, gap insurance on car loans, the credit life insurance and identity theft protection sold with mortgages, car loans, and credit cards, and the collision damage waivers and short term liability insurance sold with car rentals

Surprisingly a significant proportion of people buy this type of insurance, reasons given are often:

• Peace of mind, 
• Convenience,
  
• I already committed to purchasing the primary product,
• I was pressured by the sales person,
• I didn't know I had bought it

The UK's Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has produced an infographic which shows how consumer behaviour is affected when general insurance is sold as an add-on product as opposed to a primary purchase:

When you are renting a car, in most cases high excess insurance is included in the rental price. 

Often the terms and conditions of the insurance are unfair. In fact in Australia, the competition authority has been pursuing some rental car companies for just that, unfair contracts.

Even if the contract is 'fair' the high excess is normally $3k to $5k and rental car companies will often insist on a credit card bond for the full excess amount unless you purchase their low or zero-excess options.

Their zero-excess option is unsurprisingly a nice little earner for them; typically rental car companies will charge $17 - $20 per day. So, lets do the math:

• Annualized, the price per vehicle per year is $6,205 - $7,300. 
• Typical claims per vehicle per year are normally between 0.1 to 0.3, 
• Hence, on average rental car companies will only pay out $300 - $1,500.
  

The rental car company's gain is your loss. So how can you avoid it?

1. Check your current car insurance policy, some insurers will extend cover for rental car excesses
2. Check your credit card travel insurance, you may be covered provided you have met the conditions (international travel, majority of cost paid with card etc) 
3. Buy stand-alone domestic travel insurance which includes rental car excess insurance (e.g. 1Cover) 
4. If you are in the U.S. you can get stand alone rental car excess insurance
5. Freeze the full excess through your credit card bond, noting that rental car companies often state that it can take up to one month to unfreeze your funds and if you are in a crash you may be up for the full excess amount
6. Deposit one third of the excess through PeerCover sharing the risk with your peers

We don't think it just the rental car companies that are making motza from low excess options. That's why we invented PeerCover - so you can pay less for insurance whilst PeerCovering your high excess.