Liz Koh: Enriched Retirement Founder on health insurance in New Zealand, if employers should pay for it

Should your job provide health insurance coverage? 

There are calls for a fringe benefit tax break as a Council report reveals people are twice as likely to have car insurance than life or health. 

It says 78% of Kiwis pay for their own insurance, rather than employers footing the bill. 

Enriched Retirement Founder Liz Koh told Andrew Dickens that New Zealanders tend to think they’re bulletproof, and they don’t tend to put health insurance at the top of their priority list. 

She says that if you don’t have good health, it impacts your ability to work, and employers have a vested interest in making sure their employees are healthy. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
So should your employer give you health insurance? We've got
calls for a fringe benefit tax break to help New
Zealanders pay for the rising cost of health insurance. And
this came from a study from the Financial Services Council
which found we are twice as likely to ensure our
cars than we are ourselves in our health. They reckon
only one in four key weis get their health insurance
paid for by their employer, with seventy eight percent of

(00:23):
insurance people paying for it out of their own pocket.
And I know it hurts. Let us go as the
founder of Enriched Retirement and joins you. Now, Hello, Liz,
good morning. So should employers be paying your health insurance?
Or is the whole point of a public health system
to be our health insurance?

Speaker 2 (00:42):
Look, I think our public health system is under extreme
and pressure, as we all know, you know, with staff shortages,
long waiting lists, you know, the days of relying on
that public health system are gone. I think, so we
have to take care of ourselves. And I think one
of the problems here is that New Zealanders think that

(01:03):
a bullet proof, you know, they think, oh, she'll be right,
nothing's going to go wrong with me. And they don't
tend to put health insurance at the top of their
priority list. But it's getting that way because your health
is really important. You know, if you don't have good health,
then you can't enjoy life. But it may also impact
on your ability to work. And that's where I think

(01:24):
employers have a vested interest in making sure that their
employees are healthy, and part of that is encouraging them
to take out health insurance. So I think, yes, you know,
having fringe benefit tax apply to those you know, health
work related health insurance schemes is a disincentive. It's not

(01:47):
heaving us in the right direction if we continue along
those lines. So by all means, I think a tax
break on that would be extremely helpful to you know,
to encourage us to to take the right steps.

Speaker 1 (02:01):
I don't think we don't invest in health insurance because
we think we bulletproof. We don't invest in health insurance
because it's so damn expensive.

Speaker 2 (02:11):
Well, yes, look, but then how do you measure expensive?
To me, it's about what's the benefit that you're getting
in relation to that expense. So and I think particularly
for people who have got, you know, some known health
issues or who have some genetics or family history or
even history in terms of you know, being heavily involved

(02:34):
in sports and that kind of thing which might impact
their health. You know, those people are at high risk,
and I think in that situation where you're facing a
high risk, then it makes a lot of good sense
to have health insurance because you know there's there's something
going to happen to you potentially down the track which

(02:57):
is going to cost you a lot of money or
a lot of discomfort because you can't get into the
public health system. So in that sense, it's not expensive.

Speaker 1 (03:07):
Liz, I thank you so much for getting up early today.
This goes from a rich retirement. For more from Early
Edition with Ryan Bridge, listen live to News Talks it
be from five am weekdays, or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.