General disclosure

We engage financial advisers under our Authorised Bodies to provide financial advice on:

• General insurance (commercial and personal assets and liabilities)
• Life and health insurance
• KiwiSaver
• Investments
• Retirement planning
• Mortgage and lending planning

General insurance

General insurance policies insure your personal or business assets, or protect you or your business assets, liabilities and business income. 

We have access to most insurance markets in New Zealand (excluding direct insurers) along with access to overseas markets as required. 

You will find a list of general insurance products we can provide financial advice on here  and a list of the product providers here. 

The specific types of general insurance individual advisers can advise on may vary.

Life and health insurance

Life & Health policies insure you as an individual, personally and within your business, for death, accident or illness. This is to help protect you, your business and family e.g. your ability to service any debt, provide funds for your estate, gain access to medical treatment or take time off work, and protect your business and your personal income.  

We have access to the major insurers in the New Zealand market. 

You will find a list of life and health insurance products we can provide financial advice on here and a list of the product providers here. 

Investments, KiwiSaver and lending

KiwiSaver helps you accumulate funds for a deposit on your first home and/or build funds for your retirement. 

Longer term investing helps you build a diversified portfolio to achieve your financial goals or retirement. 

Lending helps you with the purchase of property and assets. We have access to the main banks and second tier lenders.

You will find a list of the financial products we can provide financial advice on here and a list of the product providers here. 

General insurance

We may charge a fee for the advice given to you and for implementing that advice. If a fee is charged, it will be based on the amount of work and time required to provide and implement our advice. The amount of any 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.

Life and health insurance, investments, and lending

We receive commission from the providers of products we recommend but, on occasion, some providers may not pay a commission. In this situation, we may charge fees. If a fee will apply to the advice we provide, we will advise you before providing any advice so you may choose whether you wish to proceed on that basis.

The following service fees apply.

• KiwiSaver membership fees are paid to Abbott NZ Holding Limited by provider.
• Fees can be added to your loan amount and will be paid to Abbott at the time your loan is advanced.

We manage all conflicts of interest, ensuring our financial advisers 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 of our financial advisers complete training to understand and manage conflicts of interest. We maintain a register of conflicts of interests and any gifts and other incentives that we may receive. We review our compliance programme annually. 

General insurance

We 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.

We are a member of Steadfast NZ Limited (Steadfast). Steadfast supplies technology platforms, management, marketing, professional, technical, and buying benefits and services to support us in providing our financial advice services.

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. These payments are used to operate Steadfast. 

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.

Premium funding

Premium funding enables you to pay the insurance premium over the term of your policy by instalments rather than as one amount. Premium funders charge interest, and they take a power of attorney over your insurance policy, which means they have the ability to cancel your insurance policy if you fail to pay an instalment. 

We own the following premium funding companies, Abbott Premium Funding Company Limited and Endeavour Premium Finance Limited. Our premium funding companies may advance your premium allowing you to spread the payments over the term of your policy. If you enter into a premium funding arrangement with either of our companies, we will receive an interest component as disclosed in your premium funding documentation, and as per our disclosure obligations under the Credit Contracts Act.  

Life and health insurance

We receive commission from the insurance companies whose policies we recommend. If you decide to take out the insurance we recommend, the insurer will pay commission to Abbott and/or the financial adviser who provider the advice. The amount of commission is based on the amount of premium associated with the insurance, which will be disclosed when the advice is given. 

Mortgages and lending

We receive commission from some of the lenders we can provide mortgage and recommendations for.   If you proceed to implement the lending with the lender recommended to you, the lender will pay a commission to your financial adviser. The amount of the commission is based on the amount of the lending and specific remuneration will be advised to you when the advice is provided.

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 contact us as follows:

Call: 0800 238 473 (8.30am-5pm weekdays)
Email: complaints@abbott.co.nz
Write: Abbott Feedback, PO Box 3086, Christchurch 8140

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, the adviser will escalate the complaint to his or her manager, notifying you accordingly. We will send you an acknowledgement of your complaint within three 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 10 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.

Our aim is to provide a final resolution 20 working days after the receipt of your complaint. 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

If we are unable to resolve your complaint, or you are not satisfied with the way we propose to do so, you can contact our external dispute resolution scheme, FSCL, which provides a free and independent dispute resolution service.

The contact details for FSCL are:

Financial Services Complaints Limited (FSCL)
PO Box 5967, Wellington 6145
0800 347 257
complaints@fscl.org.nz 
www.fscl.org.nz

Our financial advisers have duties under the Financial Markets Conduct Act 2013 relating to the way we give advice. We are bound to:

• Meet the standards of competence, knowledge, and skill set out in the Code of Professional Conduct for Financial Advice Services (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.
• 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.
• Exercise care, diligence, and skill that a prudent person engaged in the occupation of giving related financial advice would in the same circumstances.
• Meet the standards of ethical behaviour, conduct, and client care set out in the Code of Conduct, to treat you as we should and to provide you with suitable advice.

Abbott NZ Holdings Limited (FSP704491), trading as Abbott Insurance Brokers and Abbott Life and Health, is the Financial Advice Provider. We can be contacted as follows:

 

Level 2, 128 Kilmore Street, Christchurch 8013
PO Box 3086, Christchurch 8140 
0800 238 473
enquiries@abbott.co.nz