FurWise exists because comparing New Zealand pet insurers shouldn't mean you need to be an insurance expert.
I'm Blake, founder of FurWise. I’m a pet advocate first, and an insurance person second. I've spent the last 20 years in New Zealand's insurance industry across life, health and pet cover, including three years as Senior Product Manager for Southern Cross Pet Insurance.
FurWise exists because I got frustrated. When I sat down to compare pet insurance policies for my own animals, I couldn't find a single tool that showed me, clearly, what each policy actually covered. All I could really find was marketing pages, forms to fill in, and a call centre waiting to follow up. Nothing would let me see the real differences side by side. So, I decided to build it myself: a comparison tool that shows what's actually covered, which I hope makes finding the right cover for you easier.
I also know insurance is hard to make sense of if you don't work in it every day, and that's on the industry, not on you. FurWise is built for pet owners who love their animals and just want an honest, easy place to start comparing, without wading through fine print to get there.
Away from FurWise, home is a full house: two dogs, three cats, and a lifestyle block in rural Auckland that I share with my family of three boys, a few sheep, and a small flock of chickens. Pets add so much to my life and my family's, it's a big part of why this matters to me.
Why this matters to me. Recently, our six-month-old Tonkinese, Sir Reginald, had his front leg stepped on by one of our sheep. It was a full break that needed surgery to repair. The vets did an excellent job, and he's expected to make a full recovery. The bill came to $6,500. Because we had pet insurance in place, $5,000 of that was covered.
That's what insurance means to me, being able to say yes to the vet to the surgery treatment your pet needs, without you having to weigh that decision against what you can afford in the moment. It's exactly the outcome I want FurWise to help more pet owners get to.
Clear comparisons, no fine-print tricks or sales pressure. Every fact is cited back to its source.
A calm, credible website based on facts that matter to you, not fiction, never hype, never a sales pitch.
We acknowledge that pet insurance decisions come from worry about an animal you love, not just a purchase.
Every breed welcome, every question answered in plain English, approachable, never condescending.
We like to be upfront about it, so we lead with it, not bury it in a footer.
If you choose to buy a policy through a link on FurWise, the insurer may pay us a referral fee. You never pay more for choosing to go via FurWise.
Insurers and other pet-related businesses, such as pet food, pet accessories, and veterinary providers, can pay to advertise on FurWise. Advertising is always labelled as advertising. FurWise only ever accepts advertising from pet-related businesses, and will never carry advertising unrelated to pets or pet care.
We also sell participating insurers aggregated, anonymised benchmarking reports. For example, which policy features pet owners look at most closely this quarter, and aggregated anonymised Anniversary Premium Tracker trends by breed and provider. These reports are built only from de-identified, aggregated usage data that can never be traced back to an individual pet owner, and every subscribing insurer agrees in writing not to attempt to re-identify anyone or resell the data. See our Privacy Policy for exactly what's collected and how it's de-identified.
None of these (referral fees, advertising, or anonymised insurer benchmarking reports) affects a provider's FurWise rating. Every fact we show is pulled from published policy wording alone, with a citation back to the page it came from, before any commercial, advertising, or data-subscription relationship is considered. This applies whether the advertiser is an insurer we compare or another pet-related business. Advertising never earns, costs, or changes how a provider appears in the comparison. FurWise does not rate, rank or endorse any insurer. We show the same published facts to everyone, and you decide what matters to you.
FurWise's ratings come from insurers published policy wording. Our Anniversary Premium Tracker is different. It only exists because pet owners choose to share what happened at renewal.
Tell us what your premium changed to at renewal. No name, email, or contact details required. Once enough pet owners have reported the same breed, provider, and plan, everyone can see how their own renewal is likely to compare, before it happens.
Like everything else on this page, it never affects a provider's FurWise rating. It's simply another information point (entirely separate from our comparisons) that pet owners can use to inform their own decisions. The more people share, the better the picture gets for everyone.