Enquiries and Complaints
We can help by answering your questions, following up with your enquiry, investigating your complaint, or guiding you in the right direction.
We all know things can and do go wrong. The IFSO Scheme is a disputes resolution service, here to help with unresolved problems between you and your financial service provider (a financial service provider is an insurer, credit provider, finance company, financial adviser or KiwiSaver).
If we accept a complaint, we investigate it carefully, and, if we can, put things right for you.
We can arrange an interpreter by telephone, we use the NZ Relay Service. We have information available about the IFSO Scheme on our website in 7 languages.
How to make an enquiry or complaint
Use our enquiry/complaint form or freephone us on 0800 888 202 or email us at info@ifso.nz
Our office hours are 8.30am to 5.00pm Monday to Friday - and our office phone number is 04 499 7612
We have Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) about our dispute resolution service. If you question is not answered in this section, or if you are unsure about anything just call us on 0800 888 202 or email us info@ifso.nz
For frequently asked questions for specific areas in financial services go to our tips and cases section or click on these links and scroll down to the FAQ section: vehicle insurance, home and contents insurance, health insurance, life insurance, Financial Advice Providers and financial advisers, loans and credit, superannuation including KiwiSaver and investments.
The IFSO Scheme can only consider complaints about Participants of the IFSO Scheme. Check if your insurer or financial service provider is a Participant by searching here.
Watch our 3-minute video about the IFSO Scheme Enquiry/Online Complaint Form. If you would like assistance or are unsure how to fill in this online form, just call us on 0800 888 202
Here is more information about how to make a complaint.
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Make a complaint to your financial service provider
- Contact the provider and tell them you are making a complaint – some providers have an online option to do this
- If you want us to help you to make a complaint, call us on 0800888202 or use our online enquiry/complaint form. We can help you to put the complaint into writing, send it to the provider for you, and check you get a response.
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Your financial service provider tries to fix the problem
- The provider will have a complaints process to consider your complaint
- If their complaints process does not resolve your complaint, the provider will refer you to the IFSO Scheme
- If you have problems dealing with the provider, or it is not considering the complaint, contact us and we will help you
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Make a complaint to the IFSO Scheme
- If you can't resolve the complaint with the provider, or it’s more than 2 months since you made the complaint to it, contact us
- If you haven’t already done so, use our online enquiry/complaint form to tell us about the complaint, or email, or phone us
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IFSO Scheme complaints
- We will ask you to give us authority to look at the complaint, then get information from the provider about the complaint
- If it’s a complaint we can consider, we will allocate it to a case manager who will investigate it for you
- We use negotiation, conciliation and mediation to try to reach an agreement between you and the provider where possible or, where that’s not possible, we’ll make a decision that is binding on the provider, but not on you unless you accept it
The IFSO Scheme's Privacy Policy ensures all personal information is managed in accordance with the Privacy Act 2020.
If you have made a complaint to the IFSO Scheme we will collect personal information from you to assist the full and fair investigation of complaints. We can also collect information from your insurer, financial service provider or a third party if you authorise us to do so.
The IFSO Scheme’s Service Charter sets out what you can expect of our free service as a customer of an IFSO Scheme financial service provider, and our expectations about how you will engage with us during our complaint resolution process.
Participants of the IFSO Scheme have obligations to their clients and customers.
If you are not satisfied with an aspect of our service or our process, you are able to make a service complaint about the IFSO Scheme by emailing info@ifso.nz. Just tell us what the issue is and what you want to happen. If you need any help, please call us on 0800 888 202.
Service complaints are about the service we provided. They are not a review of a complaint decision or outcome.
We will respond to your service complaint as quickly as possible. if we need to get specialist advice or make further enquiries, it may take more time. We will let you know the timeframe to expect.
Links to other organisations that may be able to help you including; consumer help and community organisations, government agencies, financial sector Codes of Conduct, other dispute resolution schemes and, industry and professional bodies.
Complaints contain valuable information about when and how things go wrong. By sharing tips & cases about common issues, we aim to help more things go right.