Half of KiwiSavers wrongly believe in Govt guarantee: survey

UMR Research says just under half of people in KiwiSaver schemes wrongly think their money is covered by a Government guarantee. Photo / The Aucklander

A new survey shows many KiwiSaver members have a false sense of security about their investments, research company UMR says.

In its latest survey of 750 New Zealanders aged 18 and over, almost half of all KiwiSaver members wrongly thought their investments had a government guarantee and over one-third had no idea whether there was a guarantee or not, UMR said today.

The survey indicated 34 per cent of New Zealanders were signed up to KiwiSaver.

Of those, 56 per cent said they did not know that much or hardly anything about the scheme they had invested in.

When asked if the KiwiSaver fund they had invested in had a government guarantee, 48 per cent said it had when in fact no such guarantee existed, UMR said.

A further 37 per cent said they were unsure whether there was a guarantee, while only 15 per cent correctly answered that there was no guarantee.

- NZPA