What complaints and dispute decisions tell you about motor insurers in New Zealand

Complaints and dispute decisions can be very useful when comparing motor insurers. They can reveal how insurers handle claims when things go wrong, how they interpret policy wording, whether they explain decisions clearly, and how they respond when customers challenge them.

But they are evidence of particular problems and how they were resolved, not a complete measure of an insurer's quality or trustworthiness.

The key is to distinguish what the evidence actually shows from what you might reasonably infer from it.

1. What complaints and decisions can tell you

How claims are handled

Decisions can reveal whether an insurer assessed vehicle damage appropriately, obtained relevant evidence, explained a settlement, or delayed resolving a claim. They can also show how it responded when the customer disputed the outcome.

How policy exclusions are applied

Disputes may expose differences over excesses, agreed or market value, pre-existing damage, mechanical failures, driver restrictions, theft, or whether a vehicle is a total loss. They help show how particular policy terms work in real situations.

Communication and customer service

A decision may describe confusing explanations, poor communication, missed expectations or an insurer's willingness to reconsider its position. These details can help you identify recurring service problems.

Whether the insurer puts things right

Outcomes can show whether an insurer corrected an error, paid an amount owed, reconsidered a decision, or offered compensation. The reasoning behind the outcome is often more informative than the result alone.

A particularly useful signal is a decision that identifies a clear error, explains why it happened, and shows whether the insurer corrected it. Several similar decisions may point to a process or policy interpretation worth investigating.

2. What New Zealand complaints data actually shows

The Insurance Council of New Zealand (ICNZ) publishes complaints information under its Fair Insurance Code. This is useful because it provides figures across insurers, rather than relying solely on individual stories.

For context, ICNZ's 2025 Annual Review reports the following figures across its reporting of insurance claims and external dispute resolution. Fair Insurance Code

Claims received in 2025

1.31 million

Complaints referred externally

603

Externally settled

41

Partially upheld against insurer

22

Source: ICNZ Annual Review 2025. The figures cover the reported insurance sector, not motor insurance alone. They are not a league table of motor insurers.

These figures show that external dispute resolution deals with a small fraction of claims. They do not establish that the remaining claims were all handled perfectly, nor do they establish that the insurers with more complaints are worse.

The 2024 reporting also illustrates an important comparison problem: insurers differ substantially in their claim volumes, and the number of complaints closed in a year is not necessarily the number of claims made in that same year that generated complaints. ICNZ explicitly cautions readers to account for differences in insurer size and complaint volumes. How to Make an Insurance Complaint (NZ)

3. What complaints and decisions don't tell you

They don't measure every unhappy customer

Many customers never complain. Others accept an insurer's explanation, give up, settle privately or resolve an issue through the insurer's internal process. A low number of external disputes may reflect effective service, but it may also reflect how many customers escalate their complaints.

They don't prove an insurer is good or bad overall

A decision against an insurer can expose a genuine mistake without proving that its overall claims handling is poor. Conversely, a decision in an insurer's favour does not prove its customer service was excellent; it may simply mean the policy did not cover the loss.

They don't necessarily isolate motor insurance

Published insurer complaint figures may combine motor, home, contents, travel and other personal insurance. An insurer's overall results therefore may not tell you how it handles car claims specifically. How to Make an Insurance Complaint (NZ)

They don't establish the likelihood of a problem without a suitable denominator

Fifty complaints from an insurer with a very large claims portfolio might be less concerning than twenty complaints from one with a much smaller portfolio. Even complaints per claim can be misleading if insurers differ in product mix, claim complexity or reporting practices.

They don't guarantee future performance

Decisions describe past cases. An insurer may have improved its processes since a decision, or the same problem may still be recurring. You need dates, patterns and evidence of corrective action to distinguish the two.

There is another important limitation: a dispute decision is not always a finding of misconduct. Some disagreements arise because policy wording is genuinely restrictive, evidence is incomplete, or the parties interpret the facts differently. Read the reasons for the decision, not just which side prevailed.

4. How to compare motor insurers fairly

When researching insurers in New Zealand, I'd use complaints and decisions as one part of a broader assessment.

Evidence to examine	What to look for
Complaint rates	Complaints relative to claims or policyholders, using consistent definitions and periods
Customer-upheld decisions	Whether the insurer made errors, and how serious or repeated they were
Reasons for decisions	Whether disputes concern policy wording, evidence, poor communication or avoidable mistakes
Recurring themes	Similar problems across multiple cases, especially over several years
Resolution and remediation	Whether errors were corrected and the insurer addressed the underlying cause
Motor-specific cases	Disputes involving repairs, write-offs, valuations, excesses, replacement vehicles and claim delays
Policy terms	Whether the cover you need is actually included, including exclusions and settlement provisions

A practical example

Suppose Insurer A has 40 external disputes and Insurer B has 15.

You cannot conclude that B is better just from those numbers. You would want to know:

• How many motor claims each insurer handled.
• How many disputes were upheld against each insurer.
• Whether the disputes concerned motor insurance or other products.
• Whether the cases involved isolated errors or repeated problems.
• Whether the insurers have since changed their practices.

If A handled far more claims, its larger complaint count might be unsurprising. If A also had repeated findings of avoidable errors in motor claim assessments, that would be a more meaningful warning sign.

5. Where to find reliable New Zealand evidence

These are good starting points:

• ICNZ — Complaints data and Fair Insurance Code — insurer-level reporting and explanations of how to interpret complaint outcomes.
• Financial Markets Authority — Disputes and consumer protection — explains independent dispute resolution and the consumer complaint process.
• Financial Services Complaints Ltd (FSCL) — publishes information about its complaint process and decisions.
• Insurance & Financial Services Ombudsman Scheme (IFSO) — information about insurance disputes and independent resolution.

New Zealand financial service providers must belong to an approved dispute resolution scheme, although each scheme has rules about which disputes it can consider. Disputes and consumer protectionHow to Make an Insurance Complaint (NZ)

Bottom line

Complaints and dispute decisions are most valuable for identifying how an insurer behaves when a claim becomes difficult or contested. They are less useful as a standalone ranking of which insurer is best.

For a sound comparison, combine them with motor-specific policy wording, claim-handling practices, repair and replacement arrangements, premiums and excesses.

The strongest warning sign isn't necessarily a high raw complaint count. It's a consistent pattern of similar, avoidable problems that materially affect customers, especially when the evidence suggests the insurer has not corrected them.