She said even though the Banking Ombudsman and Insurance Ombudsman had been around for several years there were still a lot of people unaware of what recourse was open to them and because of that were missing out on the right to getting a fair hearing.
"Many New Zealanders are unaware they can seek free and independent help with problems they have with their financial services provider.
"Not only does this cost consumers, but also our participants, who lose the chance to rectify a problem and keep a customer happy," Ms Taylor said.
She said it was difficult to take a more proactive promotional line. "We simply don't have a large budget for that sort of PR work, relying instead on getting our message out to consumer groups, Citizens Advice and the like," she said.
"Even when the new laws came into effect in 2010 we were hoping the Government would do a lot of promoting at the time but it didn't."
She said people needed to remember that any financial advice was now "captured" under legislation and consumers have an avenue for complaint.
"We can find up to $200,000 against a financial institution if we uphold a consumer complaint and there's no recourse for those advisers against that. However, if we don't uphold the consumer's complaint they can still go to the courts for redress," she said.
Ms Taylor said the biggest compensation they delivered was $150,000 to a person in Christchurch. FSCL found the insurance broker to be negligent in that case. But in most instances the complaints her organisation deals with were for much smaller sums.
"It's important to remember that there are other cases when we decided the consumer does not have a case so nothing further happens from our point of view," Ms Taylor said.
From the cases FSCL resolved in the six months to the end of December last year, around 42 per cent were complaints against insurance companies, followed by lenders and finance companies at around 16 per cent. The product most complained about was travel insurance, followed by consumer credit agreements.
Ms Taylor says despite increasing numbers of inquiries and complaints to FSCL, she believes many consumers may have missed the chance to seek help.
INSIDE OIL
FSCL is an independent not-for-profit external dispute resolution scheme approved by the Minister for Consumer Affairs under the Financial Service Providers (Registration and Dispute Resolution) Act 2008. It was the first scheme to be approved and is governed by an independent board with equal consumer and industry representatives, and an independent chair.
It provides dispute resolution services to participating financial service providers and their clients and is free to consumers.
It focuses on resolving complaints through conciliation and assisted negotiation and is also able to make formal determinations which are binding on financial service providers.
Other dispute resolution schemes are the Banking Ombudsman, the Insurance and Savings Ombudsman and the Government's reserve scheme, Financial Disputes Resolution.
For more information go to www.consumeraffairs.govt.nz/for-consumers/how-to-complain/financial-service-providers-disputes-resolution.
