From the brother of one of my sister’s friends and this backpacker’s I’ve learned that in New Zealand car insurance in an option rather than a legal requirement as in the UK.
This seems odd to me, is it legally correct? Can you tear around NZ without any insurance? There are providers, HSBC site for example (who give cover against uninsured drivers). The first site I linked to said insurance when bought is competitive compared to the UK.
So is car insurance prohibitively expensive to cover accidental damage against the uninsured? Are accident rates far far lower in NZ compared to the Northern Hemisphere?
No doubt one of our New Zealand members can be more explicit but you should factor into your considerations the existence of the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC). This is a crown entity that:
I gather that this covers personal injury in car accidents, which is likely to be the only type of insurance that would be compulsory in the absence of the ACC. Certainly in Australia the only type of car insurance that’s compulsory is CTP (compulsory third party covering the driver against injuries to other people) and which must be purchased before a car can be registered. It’s not a requirement that car owners insure their own cars, or insure against third party property damage, although it’s obviously very sensible to do so.