2025 | Celebrating a decade of Awards
SENIORS NEW ZEALAND is proud to announce this year’s Winners and Finalists of NZ’s Best Retirement / Lifestyle Villages and Care Facilities for 2025. This year we recognise 50 facilities and 4 group providers across Aotearoa, with each category limited to upto 6 finalists and a single category winner. Our grateful thanks to UC School of Mathematics and Statistics | Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha for independently calculating our award recipients this year from almost 5000 reviews. Finalists were required to reach a 90%+ weighted average to qualify—making this year’s honourees a remarkably elite group. Special recognition to the three villages and one care facility that picked up ‘Enduring Excellence’ Awards with consistent high scores over a 5+ year period. Results of the Winners & Finalists for the 2025 NZ’s Best Retirement / Lifestyle Villages & Aged Care Awards :
“Note: From this year we’ve increased the criteria of the small aged care category from 40 beds to 80 beds, to better reflect the average split between small and large aged care, and also bring it in line with 80+ units for med/large villages.”
FAQ : NZ’s Best Awards – Independent and Resident Driven
Since the awards began in 2015, every retirement village and aged-care provider in New Zealand has been eligible, at no cost, and the results entirely driven by resident reviews. Whether a facility has an upgraded plan with AgedAdvisor / Seniors New Zealand or is on a free listing both have the same opportunity to be acknowledged.
1. Who can enter the NZ’s Best Awards?
● All retirement villages and aged-care providers in NZ are automatically included — there is no entry fee and no requirement to be on any plan with us.
● Even the cost of posting back the freepost voting forms is covered by Seniors New Zealand.
2. How are the winners decided?
● Since 2015 results have been calculated using an algorithm developed in conjunction with the University of Canterbury’s Statistics Department. In 2025 UC School of Mathematics and Statistics were engaged to process all the ratings, and supply SENIORS NEW ZEALAND with the final list of winners and finalists.
● The scoring is based purely on resident reviews and ratings — not on any advertising or status or advertising spend.
● The methodology is explained below:
Data processing
Filtering data from [the close of the previous years awards] and newer.
Setting maximum number of reviews (rmax) based on certification service type: # Rooms for Retirement Villages, # Beds for Aged Care. ◦ For higher number of received reviews the maximum (rmax) is set to the number of reviews.
Large facilities are defined as >80 rooms and >80 beds (otherwise small)
Deriving scores
We define r_ij as the number of reviews in the ith Likert scale category in the jth facility, and rmax_j, the number of possible reviews per facility. Then, the number of “missing” reviews is d_j = rmax_j-r_j. The proportion of reviews over all facilities is calculated as, p_ij=r_i / r_j, where r_i is the sum over all facilities and r_j is the sum over all Likert categories.
The score is a weighted average, shrinking the score to the global average given the number of “missing” reviews:
s_j = sum_{i=1 to 5} { i * (r_ij + d_j*p_ij) / (5*rmax_j) }
Using only a single method to calculate a score instead of an average of several scoring methods makes the methodology more transparent. The score prefers a high percentage of good reviews. For facilities with a small number of reviews per capacity the score shrinks towards the global average score.
● The average of scores for all 7 review categories is used to derive a combined score. A score for a category does not count for the average score when no reviews have been collected (set to NA for review number of 0).
3. Do facilities that pay for an upgraded plan have an advantage?
● No. Results, trophies and certificates are awarded regardless of upgrade status. Every year, SNZ presents awards to facilities as winners and finalists irrespective of whether they are on an upgraded plan.
4. Why are some facilities more visible in the awards?
● Many upgraded facilities actively promote the awards and voting forms to their residents, which can lead to higher participation and more feedback. More feedback gives a higher accuracy of score which a weighted average calculation takes into account.
● If a provider wishes to use or promote their success using the awards wording, logo, marketing materials, and other promotional collateral in their own advertising, they do need to
be on a plan – but this is about using the recognition, not about winning it.
5. What are Group & Multi-Village/Care Awards?
Once all individual facility scores have been processed, those providers that have multiple facilities spread Nationally or focused within a particular sector (currently Villages OR Care) have their facilities scores totalled and then averaged.
🏆 National Group Excellence Award
Recognises a leading provider operating multiple villages and care facilities across both the North and South Islands, with a high portion of those facilities achieving excellent reviews in the year.
🏆 Multi-Village Excellence Award
Celebrates providers with three or more villages within either the North and/or South Island, where the majority of those villages have received excellent reviews in the year.
🏆 Multi-Care Facility Excellence Award
Honours providers with three or more care facilities within either the North and/or South Island, demonstrating excellence through a majority of those facilities earning excellent reviews in the year.
6. What are the Outstanding Category & Enduring Excellence Awards?
🏆 Outstanding Category Award
While we recognise overall winners and finalists from across the sector, for the first time in 2025, we are delighted to award a trophy to the facility that scored highly in a specific voting category. Those categories being recognised are ‘Knowledgeable / Caring Staff”, “Responsive Management” and “Enjoyable Food” – and are given to the facilities with the highest score under the overall trophy winner for their sector.
🏆 Enduring Excellence Award
This award is really our pinnacle award for those facilities who have consistently been recognised for outstanding performance for 5 or more years… and we mean consistent – every year. It’s an extremely high benchmark and only 6 facilities over the past 10 years have been given this accolade.
In summary:
The NZ’s Best Awards are an independent measure of resident satisfaction, open to all providers at no cost. SENIORS NEW ZEALAND is proud to share these awards with facilities, recognising the votes of the consumer that have chosen these places.
For more information, visit newzealandsbest.co.nz