Fear and ignorance in the responses here, and the headline feeds both.

You can choose your provider, you can choose your risk profile. Except for death and taxes there are no guarantees in life. (I guess 56% choose not to live, but still complain about the outcome)

A government guarantee would only come with government intervention into investment strategy leading to lower risk profiles and lesser returns over time. It would also leave the govenment with hooks on the money - and your only real guarantee over 40 years of government is that one of them would meddle with it.

There is only one way this scheme is going. The Australian way - leading (eventually) to higher, compulsary, member and employer rates, with government subsidies being withdrawn once the scheme has reached critical mass/acceptance - and eventually reduced government super. These are not bad things as long as phased in well.

Why you'd give up on the freebies and length in the market on offer in the meantime I don't know.

A valid complaint would be the inability to spread your risk over two or more providers to mitigate the rare, but probably inevitable, catastrophic eggs in one basket issue. But working in the industry - I can see how this would be hard to implement - for the moment. (At least until that 56% understand the simple options currently in front of them anyway!)

The Government should not guarantee Kiwisaver! Why should the tax payer compensate investors who have not made an effort to understand what they are investing in? If these people had actually read the investment statement, then they would have known Kiwisaver was not guaranteed and that it is quite different to a debenture. There are low risk cash fund options (it would still be a good investment with all the free credits you receive).

I joined kiwi saver so I could put the money towards my first home. Now that I know it's not government guaranteed i'm thinking twice??

Its not too surprising really - a lot of people I talked to had no idea about the risks involved. Most people just dont have the knowledge on financial investments and the Government isnt doing much, if any, to educate the public re. the risks. Having said that, with employer and government contributions you can have up to 300% return just from their contributions - which means that its very difficult for people to actually make a loss and I guess in that sense, its sort of "safe" investing in kiwisavers, definitely more so than investing privately or through managed funds...

KiwiSaver isn't guaranteed, but neither is your superannuation income when you retire. The difference is that the KiwiSaver money is YOURS, the government doesnt have discretion over it.

Also, there should be no smugness from people who did not sign up to KiwiSaver early if they could afford to. These people were ignorant, and still appear to be ignorant, of the added incentives the government provides.

Fear of losing the money is ridiculous when most peoples money is in the default (mostly cash) schemes. It is like money in the bank. If you lose money in these default options after the added value given by the government, then you will have larger problems to deal with, like the disintegration of modern civilisation.

You would have to have rocks in your head NOT to sign up to Kiwisaver!! It is the only surefire investment I know of in which your annual contribution gets a guaranteed return of up to 200% in a year (depending on your contribution and whether you have an employer)... and that doesn't even count the earnings of your investment. Join with a major bank in a cash based (low risk) scheme, then the government guarantee is hardly necessary.

About to start up my first business building with a mate of mine. Wish i could get this cash out so i can clear my debts but can't so will have to pay more interest than i get frrom Kiwisaver. I wish there was away i could get a hold of this as i planning on retiring early on my own funds.

The only reason i have decided not to enlist for KiwiSaver is there is no guarantee from Govt. that money save by people will be safe. Because it may happen like Hanover finance that your whole retirement money is gone just because of bunch of idiots who were playing with your money. Another drawback is your don't get that much returns like Superannuation scheme, which has high returns 9% from day one and also backup from govt.

yes maybe it would be a good idea to be able to pull out of it after a certan amount of time or after a certan amount of munny had been saved. i think it is beceause the govt said you cant get the money out is what scared pepople away from the scheem its almost just giving away your money.

I just wish it was more flexible, perhaps taking your money out of the scheme after 10 years shuld be possible?

I for one wish my provider gave me some kind of information graphics showing my money growing. It feels like its all happening behind a corporate heavy velvet blue curtain... who knows whats going on back there!