Tamsyn Parker: How much of a cut is your KiwiSaver provider taking?

How much of a cut is your KiwiSaver provider taking? Photo/Lynda Feringa.

Apparently from now until I turn 65 I'm going to give around $14k to my KiwiSaver provider to manage my money.

That's more than what my car is worth - probably both our cars combined actually - so it's not small change.

What am I getting for that $14k?

At the moment I receive a letter once a year showing me my balance and an annual report telling me all about my scheme - which to be honest - I probably don't spend a lot of time reading - something about having two small children.

Of course there is a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes.

Some professional people are making decisions about where my money is being invested and whether I should have more in shares or bonds and whether I should own Apple shares or Fletcher Building shares.

I also have to pay someone to keep an eye on those professionals to make sure what they are doing is above board.

Am I getting value for money?

It's really hard to know.

According to the sorted fees calculator I could be paying as little as $9,700 from now until 65 (29 years) or as much as $46,440 - whoa that sounds a lot!

Unlike buying a toaster or washing machine the old adage of you get what you pay for doesn't apply to financial services.

Some fund managers claim they charge higher fees because they bring in higher returns - that might be true for some but it's not always the case.

And is it actually possible to fulfill that claim for 20-plus years?

Others claim they charge the least fees so will get the best end result as they are saving you money but that will also depend on investment returns.

It's impossible to look at fees and returns in isolation - they both matter to the end result.

The thing about fees is that they are predictable (well more or less) where as returns can go up and down a lot over time and past performance is not an indication of future returns.

Paying too much in fees means you are not only missing out on having that money in your retirement pot but you miss out on the returns that money could have generated as well.

We easily spend hours shopping around for appliances so it's time we shopped around for KiwiSaver too.