Complaints
Te Whakatakoto Whakapae
Making a Complaint
Te Whakatakoto Whakapae
How to make a complaint
Your rights when making a complaint
When you make a formal complaint under the Fair Insurance Code, your insurance company will:
- acknowledge receipt of your complaint within five (5) business days
- respond to your complaint within 10 business days
- advise you of your right to take your complaint to their independent external dispute resolution scheme if they are unable to resolve your complaint within two (2) months.
External dispute resolution schemes
Any insurer who provides their services to retail customers must belong to an approved external dispute resolution scheme under the Financial Services Providers (Registration and Dispute Resolution) Act 2008.
External dispute resolution schemes are free to the insurer’s customers but do have some limits on what types of complaints they can consider. For instance, they cannot review complaints relating to commercial decisions (such as premium or policy terms) or where the amount in dispute is greater than $350,000 (plus GST if applicable). Disputes greater than these amounts will need to be heard in either the District or High Court.
External dispute resolution schemes investigate complaints and try to resolve them by negotiation or mediation, where possible. They are approved by the Minister of Consumer Affairs under this Act and must be:
- independent
- fair
- accessible
- accountable
- efficient
- effective.
Your insurer will belong to one of two approved dispute resolution schemes:
ICNZ's Code Compliance Committee
If the Committee agree that there has been a significant breach that has brought the industry into disrepute, they will report the breach to the Board of ICNZ and recommend a sanction to be applied. The ICNZ Board then makes the final decision about whether a sanction should be applied. The ICNZ Board is able to reprimand members, terminate their membership, or impose a fine of up to $100,000. Any fine money is used by ICNZ to pursue financial capability programmes for the public.
The Code Compliance Committee is currently made up of the following independent members:
- Dr Warren Young QSO – Principal Operations Adviser, Independent Police Conduct Authority.
- Hon David Caygill – former Minister of Finance, partner at Buddle Findlay, and Commissioner of Environment Canterbury.
- Diane Morcom CNZM – former Secretary of the Cabinet and Clerk of the Executive Council.
The Compliance Committee is chaired by Tim Grafton (ICNZ CE).
Complaints data
ICNZ has long collected and published Fair Insurance Code complaints data in its Annual Review. The summary below is for the 2022 calendar year.