Public Disclosure Statement
Our License
The Insurance Advice Company Ltd, FSP1009003, holds a full Class 2 Financial Service Providers license.
We are regulated by the Financial Markets Authority (FMA). We are bound by the duties under the Financial Markets Conduct Act 2013.
Member of Steadfast
We We are a member of Steadfast NZ Limited (Steadfast). Steadfast supplies technology, management, marketing, professional, technical, and buying benefits and services to support us in providing our financial advice services.
Nature & Scope of Our Advice and Service
We engage financial advisers to provide advice on general insurance products on our behalf. These are policies that insure your personal or business assets or protect you or your business assets, liabilities and business income. The specific types of insurance that our individual advisers can advise customers on may vary.
We are not able to provide advice on personal income protection or investment policies but are able to refer you to associates who are licensed to provide advice on such products.
We work with a wide range of insurance companies to help you secure the best cover for your general insurance needs. We always prioritise your interests above our own, with an advice process that ensures our recommendations are based on your individual goals and circumstances. We have access to most insurance markets in New Zealand (excluding direct insurers) along with access to overseas markets as required.
The insurers we currently work with are listed on page 5 of this Disclosure.
Fees, Expenses and Other Amounts Payable
Administration fee:
We do not charge a fee for the advice given to you but may charge a fee for implementing that advice. This fee will be based on the amount of work and time required to provide and implement our advice to you and will be shown on our invoice to you, payable on payment of your premium.
The amount of this fee will be disclosed either at the time we know the scope and nature of the advice required, or when we provide our advice to you.
Premium funding:
Premium funding products enable you to pay the insurance premium over the term of your policy by instalments rather than in one amount. Premium funders charge interest, and they take a power of attorney over your insurance policy. This means they have the ability to cancel your insurance policy if you fail to pay an instalment.
If you enter such an arrangement, the premium funder will pay us a commission as a percentage of the amount they fund. The amount of this commission will be disclosed to you when we know the scope and nature of the advice required and whether you intend to utilise the services of a particular premium funder. Commission will be paid to us directly from the premium funder.
Commissions & Incentives
The Insurance Advice Company Ltd and our financial advisers will receive commission from the insurance companies on whose policies we give advice. If you decide to take out a policy, the insurer will pay us commission based on the premium that you pay.
Steadfast NZ Limited (Steadfast) has arrangements with insurance companies under which Steadfast receives a professional services fee of up to 1.5% of the premium paid for each policy arranged by us with those insurers. Steadfast may also receive a fee of 0.5% of any amount a customer has funded through a premium funder. These payments are used to operate Steadfast.
We maintain a register of any gifts and other incentives that we may receive and we review our compliance programme annually.
Conflicts of Interest
A financial adviser may have a conflict of interest in circumstances where financial advice has been provided to two clients who later have a dispute, including in respect of liability. In this instance the adviser would clearly disclose the conflict of interest to the clients and would refer one of these clients to another of our financial advisers for further advice and assistance.
We manage all conflicts of interest, ensuring our financial advisors prioritise your interests above their own, by following an advice process that ensures our recommendations are made on the basis of your needs and circumstances.
All our financial advisers complete training to understand and manage conflicts of interest. We maintain a register of conflicts of interests and we review our compliance programme annually.
Duties
The Insurance Advice Company Ltd and our financial advisers are bound by the following duties under the Financial MarketsConduct Act 2013 to:
- Meet the standards of competence, knowledge, and skill set out in the Code of Professional Conduct for Financial AdviceServices (Code of Conduct), which form part of the wider regulatory regime for financial advice and ensure we have the expertise necessary to provide you with advice; and
- Give priority to your interests by taking all reasonable steps to ensure that the advice given to you is not materially influenced by our own interests or the interests of any other person connected with the giving of advice; and
- Exercise care, diligence, and skill that a prudent person engaged in the occupation of giving related financial advice would in the same circumstances; and Meet the standards of ethical behaviour, conduct, and clientcare set out in the Code of Conduct, to treat you as we shouldand to provide you with suitable advice.
Complaints & Dispute Resolution
If you are unhappy with our financial advice service, please contact your financial adviser so he or she can try to put things right.
If you wish to make a complaint, or do not feel comfortable discussing your concerns with your adviser, you can:
- Call us on 04 568 8996 between the hours of 9.00am – 5.00pm,Monday – Friday; or
- Email us at info@insuranceadvicecompany.nz; or
- Write to us at 2/122 Queens Drive, Hutt Central, Lower Hutt, addressing your letter to the attention of Benn Florance.
How your complaint will be handled:
Your adviser will attempt to resolve any issue of dissatisfaction with you immediately. If the matter cannot be resolved to your satisfaction, your adviser will escalate the complaint to his or her manager, notifying you accordingly.
We will send you an acknowledgement of your complaint within five working days of your complaint being notified to us. This letter will provide you with our timeline to respond to you and the name of the manager who will be managing our response. The manager will investigate and contact you to try to resolve the complaint to your satisfaction. It is important that you provide this person with all relevant information.
We will provide you with a written update within 20 working days of receiving your complaint. If we are unable to provide a full response to you at that point, our letter will explain why we are not yet in a position to do so and tell you when we will next contact you.
40 working days after the receipt of your complaint we will issue a final resolution. If we need to continue our review past this point, we will explain to you the reason for the delay and the required timeframe to provide a full response. At this point, if you feel that the delay is unsatisfactory, you can redirect your complaint to our external dispute resolution service provider detailed below.
If we are unable to resolve your complaint:
We expect that our response to you will have addressed the concerns you have raised. If you feel that your concerns have not been appropriately considered, we invite you to submit any further information for consideration.
If we are unable to resolve your complaint despite our best efforts, you can contact our external dispute resolution scheme provider, who provides a free and independent dispute resolution service.
The contact details for our external dispute resolution service provider are below:
Financial Services Complaints Ltd (FSCL) Level 4, 101 LambtonQuay Wellington 6011 Phone: 0800 347 257 or 04 472 3725
This document was last updated: 21 February 2025