Frequently Asked Questions

We are a no cost to you service. We get paid by the providers. We also have fee for service options if you prefer this approach.

The insurance market in New Zealand is an advice-driven one. People do not tend to make changes or acquire new cover on a whim, something usually drives this, often it is adverse personal events.

It is best that the appropriate advice and insurance cover is arranged before these events happen, so advisers are tasked, by insurers and financial institutions, to find and help people with the right solutions for their situation.

As a result, the New Zealand life industry pays commissions and ongoing service payments to fund adviser businesses to find, advise and manage their clients.

Sometimes this is direct and branded as you find with a bank product, other times it is to businesses, like us, Willowgrove Consulting.

The fundamental difference; being separate from the provider and dealing with many product providers, we can access a wider range of options and solutions that fit you the client as a one-stop-shop. Rather than the one provider option that is often the square peg round hole approach and lots of legwork for you.

What does this mean in reality?

What this means is the time you spend with us does not come with a bill attached. When we are advising on your insurance needs, we do not charge you fees, though fee for service options are available. The reality is a significant part of our marketing budget is for delivering time and resources directly to you, the potential customer, in the form of no-obligation initial meetings or resources, so you can “try before you buy”. 

We do it like this because it directs our marketing budget to those who are genuinely interested, rather than wasting it on (say) radio or print advertising to thousands of disinterested consumers.

We investigate the right solutions for you, regardless of the provider, and present you with good options; to allow you to make the best-informed decisions for you.

Many of our clients have retained their existing covers in some form, this is appropriate for them, others have changed completely, again suitable for them. One of our core values is integrity, if we do not have that, we will not have your trust, and our relationship with you has to be one based on trust.

The initial consultation is delivered to you at our cost. If we fit your needs, and we are providing the right value and solutions to you, you’ll use us, if not; you will not. It is as simple as that. We do have a fee for advice only approach as you would for a lawyer, where we have a nominal fee for the work we do. 

Insurance is a product and service that works best by arranging the right cover upfront and ensuring it remains current, as long as it is required, so ensuring you have the right working relationship and cover for your needs, is our paramount concern.

We believe in the products we arrange; we have all of them ourselves, and we have seen them successfully working, in some of the most difficult and trying times of people's lives.

When it comes to your own life insurance, by having relationships with all of the New Zealand providers, we can access the best terms for your initial coverage, and when it comes to claiming time, we expect to be involved to help you there too.

Have a chat with J-P, getting the right information you need, is critical to getting you the right coverage. You will benefit from reviewing your existing risk planning with us, to make sure you are covered as you expect to be.

What do we really do?

Manage your life risks is what we really do!

We are your adviser for your life risks, but more than just life insurance. We help you protect those things that matter most to you.

Things like your lifestyle, children, home, income and your business. Consider us your personal risk manager, keeping an eye out for the other things you also need to be aware of.

Some of the areas we can help you with:

Who do we want to talk to?

Families and business people; the reality is once children are involved or you have business interests, your need for cover can become relatively complex quite quickly. Whether you are single or a couple, with kids or a business owner with no partner and dependants, we still want to talk to you. There will be a cover that is needed and not just life cover either; we can help you access the most effective coverage for your requirements in the most cost-effective way.

For many of our clients, we often identify other aspects that also need your attention. By getting these things addressed, we often have to insure less than we otherwise would. Things like ownership structures that can be more tax-efficient or restructure debt to reduce interest and advance repayment, this makes premiums more affordable long term for you. It can be as simple as effective estate planning, for one client we identified savings of around $1,800 per month on what they were doing just by getting good advice on their estate planning.

Contact Us, drop us an This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or call J-P on 021 022 69 127. If you wish, you can subscribe to our quarterly newsletter and keep up to date with what's going on too

~ Setting you on the right path with your risk management ~