Election'26: ACT considering replacing health insurance requirement for migrant parent visa
Immigration minister Erica Stanford (right) and ACT's immigration spokesperson Parmjeet Parmar.
National's coalition partner says the Parent Boost Visitor Visa needs to be fairer and more accessible.
ACT is considering replacing the Parent Boost Visitor Visa’s compulsory private health insurance requirement with an upfront healthcare contribution as part of its 2026 election policy.
The development follows questioning by the party’s immigration spokesperson, Parmjeet Parmar, about the cost and availability of insurance for migrant parents seeking to spend extended periods with their families in New Zealand.
The National-led coalition government’s Parent Boost Visitor Visa, introduced last year, also allows eligible parents to visit New Zealand for up to five years.
It can potentially be renewed once, allowing a total stay of up to 10 years. Official data indicates the uptake for that programme has been near bottom of what was initially estimated.
Parmar says the government should apply the principles behind ACT’s Unite Visa policy from the 2023 election to make the Parent Boost Visitor Visa fairer and more accessible.
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“ACT’s original proposal did not rely on costly private insurance,” she said in a press statement on July 23, 2026.
“We proposed a clear upfront contribution based on expected per-capita healthcare costs, protecting taxpayers while giving families certainty about what they would pay."
If the government will not deliver these changes now, she warned, ACT will campaign on making them in the next term.
Asked by Awaaz whether ACT was proposing to revive the Unite Visa model, Parmar said the party had not yet settled its position.
“ACT is considering options for its 2026 policy, including an upfront healthcare contribution,” she said. “The final policy has not been determined.”
Under Act's 2023 Unite Visa policy, parents and grandparents of New Zealand citizens and residents would have been able to stay for up to five years.
Visa holders would have paid an annual healthcare contribution starting at $3,500 per person rather than being required to purchase private insurance. ACT said the charge could be adjusted over time to reflect the healthcare costs generated by people using the visa.
Under the current visiting parent visa, the cost of the medical cover has emerged as one of the visa’s biggest practical obstacles.
One insurer quoted annual premiums of about $6,000 per person for parents aged 60 to 69, $9,600 for those aged 70 to 79 and $14,000 for people aged 80 or older, RNZ has reported.
Parents must also leave New Zealand after three years to undergo another health assessment before returning for the remaining two years of the visa.
Is insurance even available, and is it affordable?
In February this year, Parmar raised concerns about the insurance market during an education and Weorkforce select committee hearing on Immigration New Zealand’s (INZ) performance.
“My understanding at that point was that not many health insurance providers were willing to provide health insurance here,” she told officials.
She asked how many parent boost visa applications had been received and how INZ verified that applicants held suitable medical cover.
Officials said 724 applications had been received by February 5 and 235 had been approved.
They defended the insurance requirement as a deliberate feature of the visa, saying the government had sought to balance the opportunity for parents to spend longer with their families against the potential cost to New Zealand’s public health system.
Officials said they had done “a lot of work together with insurance companies” while developing the policy.
They said the approvals showed applicants were managing to obtain insurance, although some providers were more expensive than others. Parents could purchase qualifying policies from overseas insurers as well as New Zealand companies.
Parmar then asked how many approved applicants had used New Zealand insurers and how many had obtained cover overseas. Immigration officials said they did not administratively collect either the cost of the insurance or the identity of the provider.
Visa officers checked whether a policy met the minimum coverage requirements, but INZ could not provide data showing which companies applicants were using or what they were paying.
Parent visa uptake near bottom of forecast range
Parmar’s questions came during the same hearing in which MPs challenged officials over the visa’s slow early uptake.
As Awaaz reported earlier, the 724 applications received by February 5 placed demand near the bottom of the government’s broad estimate of between 2,000 and 10,000 applications a year.
Green MP Ricardo Menéndez March said the number of approvals appeared significantly below expectations.
Officials said many applications were still being processed and only seven had been declined at that stage, mainly because of health or sponsor income and funds requirements.
They said the visa was tracking towards the lower end of the forecast range and could approach 2,000 applications over a full year.
Indian parents accounted for 275 of the 724 applications, making India the largest source country by a significant margin. China was second with 194.
Parmar’s repeated scrutiny of the insurance market, followed by ACT’s consideration of an alternative healthcare contribution, has placed the cost and availability of cover at the centre of the political debate over the visa.
ACT is also considering changes to the Parent Resident Visa.
Parmar said the party wanted its ballot replaced with a queue and the rule under which expressions of interest expire after two years reviewed.
Replacing the ballot would shift the residence pathway from random selection towards a system based on waiting time, although ACT has not released details of how the queue would work.
