The short answer
Cover Check was built by Amit Sharma, who is not an insurance adviser and does not hold a financial advice licence. It exists to answer the questions New Zealanders search about insurance, and to introduce the ones who want advice to Arron Nettmann — a licensed financial adviser at Buffer Insurance, and a friend.
We may benefit from that introduction. That is the commercial arrangement and we would rather put it in the second paragraph than the footer.
Last reviewed 2026-07-30
The obvious problem with that
A site that makes money from insurance enquiries has an incentive to tell you that you need more insurance. We are aware of it, and rather than claim to be above it, here is what we do about it.
We publish the case against
Read health insurance vs the public system — it says plainly that a financially secure person can reasonably decide not to buy health cover. Read trauma cover — it says trauma is the product most likely to be over-sold and explains why. Read life insurance — it has a section titled "who does not need it".
An honest site about insurance has to be able to say "not you, and not that". If ours ever stops doing that, it has stopped being useful.
We do not gate anything
The three calculators run entirely in your browser. There is no email field, nothing is transmitted, nothing is stored, and no result arrives via a salesperson. You can use this entire site and never contact anybody.
We do not give advice
Everything here is general information about how insurance works in New Zealand. It deliberately stops short of telling you what to do, because that is regulated financial advice and it requires an FMA licence — which Arron has and this site does not.
We do not invent people
There are no fabricated testimonials on this site, no stock-photo "advisers", and no invented case studies presented as real clients. The photographs are real New Zealand landscape photography, credited on the credits page. If we ever publish a client story it will be a real named person who agreed to it.
If a site about insurance cannot tell you when not to buy it, it is a brochure.
Why Arron, specifically
Because Amit Sharma knows him, and would send his own family to him. That is the entire basis of the recommendation, and it is worth being clear that this is a personal relationship rather than the output of a comparison process. We have not surveyed every adviser in New Zealand and concluded he is the best one — nobody could.
What we can tell you objectively: he is a Financial Adviser at Buffer Insurance in Auckland, a family-run brokerage, and he provides regulated financial advice under their licence. Licensed advisers in New Zealand operate under a statutory duty to put your interests first and must disclose how they are paid. Ask him for his disclosure statement — he is required to give it to you.
And if you would rather use a different adviser, that is a completely reasonable response to reading this page. The calculators and the guides work just as well.
How we write this
Sourcing, dating and correction policy are set out on how we write this. The short version: every figure carries a dated source, we publish ranges rather than fake precision, and where we are not sure we say so instead of writing around it.
Corrections
If something here is wrong — a number, a policy detail, a change in how an insurer operates — tell us and we will fix it and date the fix. Insurance detail changes constantly and a site like this decays without maintenance.
Common follow-up questions
Are you an insurance company?
No. Cover Check is an independent information site. It is not an insurer, not a broker, and not a financial advice provider. It cannot sell you a policy and does not try to.
Do you get paid if I contact Arron?
We may benefit from introductions made through this site. We are not going to pretend otherwise — it is why the site exists. What we have tried to do is build something genuinely useful whether or not you ever make contact.
Is my calculator data sent anywhere?
No. The calculators are plain JavaScript running in your browser. Nothing is transmitted, nothing is stored, and there is no form submission. You can check this by opening the page with your network tools open, or by turning off your internet after the page loads — they still work.
Keep reading
This page is general information about how insurance works in New Zealand. It is not regulated financial advice and it does not take your situation into account. For advice about your own cover, talk to a licensed financial adviser.