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Home & Contents Insurance Star Ratings and Awards

Canstar's experts reward the insurance providers delivering the best cover levels and value for money for Kiwi consumers.
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Home & Contents Insurer of the Year Award

2026 Insurer of the Year
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Home & Contents Insurance

Congratulation to Tower the winner of Canstar's Home & Contents Insurer of the Year Award 2026. This is the third year in a row that Tower has won our award.

Tower offers its customers three levels of award-winning cover across its home & contents policies: Premium, Plus and Standard. 

Awarding Tower its Insurer of the Year Award, our expert panel noted that while average annual policy prices increased 3.51% across its research, Tower recorded significant reductions in its average premiums across all three of its home and contents insurance products.

Tower also received glowing praise from its customers, scoring highly in the consumer satisfaction category of our Insurer of the Year Award.

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Outstanding Value Home & Contents Insurance Awards

Our awards reveal the insurance providers that deliver the best levels of cover and value across their home and contents policies. Winners are listed alphabetically:

2026 Outstanding Value
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Home & Contents Insurance

AMI earned an Outstanding Value Award on the back of our researchers awarding it top 5-Star ratings for value across its three comprehensive home insurance products:

  • Contents Plus Insurance
  • Home Plus Insurance
  • Home & Contents Plus Insurance

Highlights include a $15,000 allowance to add sustainable products when rebuilding after a total loss, and up to $2500 to cover legal costs if your identity is stolen. AMI's policies are underwritten by IAG.

View award details
2026 Outstanding Value
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Home & Contents Insurance

Our researchers awarded State top 5-Star ratings for value across its three home insurance products:

  • Comprehensive Contents Insurance
  • Comprehensive Home Insurance
  • Comprehensive Home & Contents Insurance

Highlights include a $15,000 allowance to add sustainable products when rebuilding after a total loss, and up to $2500 to cover legal costs if your identity is stolen. State's policies are underwritten by IAG.


View award details
2026 Outstanding Value
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Home & Contents Insurance

Tower offers great value home, contents and home & contents insurance across three cover levels: Premium, Plus and Standard.

Our research team singled out four of Tower's policies for top 5-Star value ratings, earning the insurer its fourth Outstanding Value Award in a row:

  • Plus Contents Insurance
  • Standard Contents Insurance
  • Standard Home Insurance
  • Standard Home & Contents Insurance
View award details
2026 Outstanding Value
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Home & Contents Insurance

TradeMe, which a white label of Tower, retains its Outstanding Value Award for the second year in a row for delivering great value home and contents products that combine competitive pricing with great policy features. For example, cover up to $20,000 for building materials owned by a policyholder during renovations.

View award details

Home & Contents Insurance Awards Methodology

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What are Canstar’s Home & Contents Awards?

Canstar's Insurer of the Year Award is based on its Outstanding Value Home & Contents Insurance Awards and Star Ratings, which utilise a sophisticated and unique ratings methodology that compares both costs and features across insurance policies.

The Insurer of the Year Award also factors in consumer satisfaction, measured across five key metrics: Service, Value for Money, Comprehensiveness of Cover, Communication and Cost.

Canstar's Outstanding Value Awards recognise the insurers that provides their customers outstanding levels of cover and value for money.


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Which insurers do we survey for our ratings?

Our award research encompasses 11 insurance providers:

  • AA Insurance
  • AMI
  • AMP
  • ANZ
  • FMG
  • Initio
  • MAS
  • State
  • Tower
  • Trade Me Insurance
  • Westpac
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How do we determine the award winners?

Each home and contents insurance product reviewed is awarded points for its comparative pricing and for the array of features attached to the product.

Each policy was assessed across 30 nationwide property addresses, to ensure a comprehensive comparison.

Our winners are the providers that deliver the best value across the three product profiles: home, contents, and home and contents insurance.

The Insurer of the Year Award is presented to the insurer that provides its customers the strongest combination of performance in the Outstanding Value Home and Contents Awards, as well as customer satisfaction.


Full methodology

Numbers Crunched

11Insurance providers rated
14Insurance policies analysed
4Outstanding Value Award winners
1Bank of the Year Award winner

Most Satisfied Customers Home & Contents Insurance Award

Canstar's Most Satisfied Customers Merchant Services Award is based on feedback from Kiwi insurance policy holders.

2025 Most Satisfied Customers
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Home & Contents Insurance

This year, we canvassed the opinions of over 2887 Kiwis with home and contents insurance from 14 of the biggest insurance brands in the market.

MAS's award win is based on an amazing result: MAS's customers scored their insurer top 5-Star ratings across all six award categories:

  • Overall Satisfaction
  • Communication
  • Comprehensiveness of Cover
  • Cost
  • Customer Service
  • Value for Money

It's worth noting that there were only seven perfect 5-Star ratings awarded across all the insurance providers in our research, and MAS achieved six of them, which is an amazing result.

It's worth noting that MAS is also the winner of our Most Satisfied Customers Awards for Car Insurance, and Seniors Insurance.

View award details

Most Satisfied Customers Home & Contents Insurance Award Methodology

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What is Canstar's Most Satisfied Customers Home & Contents Insurance Award?

The Most Satisfied Customers Home & Contents Insurance Award recognises the provider that offers the best levels of cover, value and consumer satisfaction to its policy holders. The award is based on consumer feedback from Kiwi homeowners owners across the country.

For this year's award, we asked 2887 Kiwis with home and contents insurance to rate their insurance companies.


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What categories were rated for the award?

Policy holders were asked to rate their insurance providers across the following categories:

  • Overall Satisfaction
  • Communication
  • Comprehensiveness of Cover
  • Cost
  • Customer Service
  • Value for Money
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What were the main drivers of satisfaction?

Customer Service was the No.1 concern (for 31% of policy holders), followed by Value for Money, and Comprehensiveness of Cover:

  • Customer Service 31%
  • Value for Money 23%
  • Comprehensiveness of Cover 17%
  • Communication 15%
  • Cost 5%
Full methodology

Numbers Crunched

2887Policy holders surveyed
18Insurance providers assessed
14Insurance providers shortlisted
1Award winner

About Canstar's Home & Contents Awards

Canstar's home and contents insurance awards and expert ratings reveal the insurance companies that offer the best products and services designed to meet the needs of Kiwi insurance customers.

FAQs about Canstar's home and contents insurance awards

Bruce Pitchers's profile picture
Bruce PitchersNZ Editor

Bruce Pitchers is Canstar's NZ Editor. An experienced finance reporter, he has three decades’ experience as a journalist and has worked for major media companies in Australia, the UK and NZ, including ACP, Are Media, Bauer Media Group, Fairfax, Pacific Magazines, News Corp and TVNZ. As a freelancer, he has worked for The Australian Financial Review, the NZ Financial Markets Authority and major banks and investment companies on both sides of the Tasman.
In his role at Canstar, he has been a regular commentator in the NZ media, including on the Driven, Stuff and One Roof websites, the NZ Herald, Radio NZ, and Newstalk ZB.
Away from Canstar, Bruce creates puzzles for magazines including Woman’s Day and New Idea. He is also the co-author of the murder-mystery puzzle book 5 Minute Murder.