Smiths Insurance and KiwiSaver

Smiths Insurance & KiwiSaver · Nationwide · since 1984

Your KiwiSaver settings, checked in 90 seconds.

A free Health Check grades your current setup: fees, tax settings and fund fit — checked against your band in 90 seconds. No in-house fund, no charge to you. We disclose how we get paid in plain English.

  • 7,500+Kiwis advised
  • $90M+under advice
  • 40years advising
  • Licensed FAPFSP712931
Smiths Insurance & KiwiSaver
KiwiSaver research & adviceNot affiliated with or endorsed by the KiwiSaver scheme administrator.

The NZ KiwiSaver market, in three numbers

3.4Mmembers

Active or provisional KiwiSaver members in NZ (30 June 2025).

IRD
$123.1Bunder management

Total KiwiSaver funds under management, up 10% year on year.

FMA Annual Report 2025
30%of working-age members aren't contributing

Largest cohort of disengaged retirement savers in the country.

FMA Annual Report 2025

Methodology

How we rank every NZ KiwiSaver fund.

Four rules. Published, auditable, and the same across every fund on the platform.

Last refresh
Q1 2026 (Apr 2026)
01

10-year horizon, no shortcuts.

We rank every NZ KiwiSaver fund on its 10-year annualised return. Funds without a 10-year track record are excluded, we don't pretend short-history funds are comparable.

02

Net of fees, not headlines.

All returns shown are after fund charges and management fees, before tax. Membership fees, performance fees, and admin levies are itemised on each fund page.

03

Risk-band normalised.

Each fund sits in one of four bands, Conservative + Defensive, Balanced, Growth, Aggressive, defined by its growth-asset allocation, not its marketing label.

04

Refreshed every quarter.

Fund data is sourced from the Morningstar KiwiSaver Survey and Sorted Smart Investor, refreshed within seven days of each quarterly release.

Three numbers worth knowing

What the NZ data has been quietly telling us.

Three figures from the IRD, the FMA’s 2025 KiwiSaver Annual Report, and the Financial Services Council that explain why most Kiwis end up worse off than they should, and what we do about each one.

1 million

miss the full $260.72

The free top-up most Kiwis leave on the table.

Around one in three KiwiSaver members miss out on the full $260.72 government contribution every year, that's hundreds of millions of dollars in unclaimed top-ups annually. The Health Check shows whether you're on track to claim yours.

$69,000

average balance at 61–65

Most Kiwis reach 65 with far less than they expect.

The Retirement Commission's 2025 figures put the average KiwiSaver balance at 61–65 at about $69,000. NZ Super covers the basics; KiwiSaver is the difference between basics and a comfortable retirement. A 0.5% fee gap or wrong fund band over 30 years is what closes that gap, or doesn't.

35%

of NZ adults hold life cover

One of the most under-insured countries in the OECD.

The Financial Services Council's Feb 2026 State of the Sector Report shows roughly 70% of Kiwis are under-insured for life and health. That's not a personal-finance problem, it's a household resilience problem.

Sources: Inland Revenue Department · Financial Markets Authority KiwiSaver Annual Report 2025 · Financial Services Council State of the Sector 2026. Past performance is not indicative of future results.

Craig Smith, Director, Smiths Insurance & KiwiSaver

Craig Smith

Financial Adviser · Smiths Insurance & KiwiSaver

FSP712931 · Christchurch

A note on how we’re paid

We don't run our own KiwiSaver fund. Here's why that matters.

Most KiwiSaver advisers in NZ are paid by the schemes they recommend, and so are we. The questions worth asking are whether the adviser discloses it, whether they advise on enough schemes to pick the right one for you, and whether the trail rate from one scheme to another would materially bend their advice.

We don't run a KiwiSaver scheme of our own. We don't charge you a fee for advice. When we move you to one of the funds on our recommendation panel, the provider pays us commission. an up-front commissions on Booster, Generate and Fisher Funds switches plus a trail in the range 0.25% – 0.5% of your balance per year, depending on the provider. You get the exact dollars in writing before anything is lodged. The gap between providers is small relative to the difference in long-term returns and total fees, and our advice process is documented and consistent. Full numbers are in our FAP disclosure.

We've been doing this since 1984, long enough to have seen the products that promised the world quietly underperform and the boring ones quietly compound. Our job is to point at the second pile.

Two sides. Done properly.

KiwiSaver and insurance, under one roof.

Most advisers do one or the other. We do both, and use the same fee-transparent approach for each.

KiwiSaver

Your largest asset, treated like one.

For most Kiwis under 50, KiwiSaver is the second-biggest household asset after the family home. yet it's the one most likely to be on autopilot in a default fund chosen for them years ago. We diagnose, recommend, switch, and stay on as your adviser.

$36,349average NZ KiwiSaver balance. most Kiwis are well behind where they need to be
Diagnose your current setup in 90 seconds
We point you at the strongest verified 10-year records in your band — past performance is not a reliable indicator of future performance
We do the switch paperwork. no faxes, no hold music
Annual review built in. your KiwiSaver, looked after
Run the Health Check

Insurance

Insurance, structured around your real life.

Only 35% of NZ adults hold life cover. making New Zealand one of the most under-insured countries in the OECD. Life, income protection, health, trauma, and business cover, advised and arranged across our panel. We compare every major NZ insurer, recommend what fits, and stay on as your adviser when it matters most.

35%of NZ adults hold life cover (FSC State of the Sector, Feb 2026)
Life cover. replace your income for those who depend on you
Income protection. keep paying the mortgage if you can't work
Health cover. surgeries and specialists without the wait
Trauma cover. a lump sum if something serious happens
Book an insurance review

How it works

Five steps. No surprises.

01

Book a review

Free 30-minute call, in person, video, or phone. No prep needed.

02

We diagnose and compare

Goals, timeframe, current setup. Then a like-for-like comparison across the main NZ providers.

03

We implement

Paperwork, switching, applications, we run the whole thing. You just sign.

04

Ongoing reviews

Annual review built in. Anything changes, your salary, family, market, we're a phone call away.

How we keep the lights on

Plain English. The same as our statutory FAP disclosure.

Who advises: Craig Smith Business Services Limited (FSP712931), trading as Smiths Insurance & KiwiSaver, holds a Class 2 licence issued by the Financial Markets Authority. Our principal Craig Smith provides the KiwiSaver advice.

Scope of advice: We give personal financial advice on a defined panel of KiwiSaver schemes. We do not provide personal advice on schemes outside that panel. The website lists the current panel; if you are with another scheme, we can talk you through whether moving to one of ours would suit your situation, but we cannot recommend you stay with or move into a scheme we do not advise on.

How we get paid: Smiths does not charge you fees for advice. When you complete a KiwiSaver with one of our panel schemes, the scheme provider pays us an upfront fee (where applicable) plus an annual trail commission calculated on your balance. Trail rates vary by provider in the range 0.25 % – 0.5 %. We do not adjust our advice based on which scheme pays the higher trail; our advice process is documented and consistently applied.

Past performance is not indicative of future returns. Returns shown on this site are historical (sourced from the FMA Quarterly KiwiSaver Disclosure, Sorted Smart Investor and provider PDS), net of fund fees and at a 28 % PIR unless otherwise stated. Information on this site is general in nature and is not personal financial advice. Personal advice considers your goals, situation and risk tolerance. for that, please contact us.

Full statutory FAP disclosure is at smiths.net.nz/disclosure. The list of advised schemes on the public disclosure document is in the process of being refreshed to reflect recent panel additions; this website lists the current panel, and our advice is given on those schemes only.

Craig Smith. Director, Smiths Insurance & KiwiSaver

Director, Smiths Insurance & KiwiSaver
Craig Smith Business Services Ltd · FSP712931 · FMA Class 2

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