The office that handled short-term insurance complaints in South Africa now forms part of the National Financial Ombud Scheme, which consolidated several industry ombud schemes into a single body. It publishes one national number.
Official contact channels
- National Financial Ombud Scheme: 0860 800 900
- Online complaint form and application for assistance: on the NFO website
- Complaints process, flowchart and case studies: published on the NFO website
The scheme publishes its complaints process, a process flowchart, rulings and case studies, along with a route for complaints against the ombud itself. Reading the process before submitting generally shortens it.
What this regulator handles
The National Financial Ombud Scheme handles complaints against participating financial institutions across non-life insurance, life insurance, banking and credit. Its participant lists are published by category, which is the first thing to check: the scheme can only consider a complaint against an institution that participates in it.
An ombud scheme is not a regulator and not a court. It resolves individual disputes between a consumer and a financial institution, usually free of charge to the consumer, after the institution’s own complaints process has been exhausted.
That last condition is the one most complaints fall foul of. The scheme expects you to have complained to the insurer or bank first and given it a reasonable opportunity to respond, and it will generally refer you back if you have not.
Complaints and escalation process
The scheme publishes an online complaint form and an application for assistance rather than relying on telephone intake alone, which is the practical route for a documented dispute.
Time limits apply to complaints, and they run from the institution’s final response rather than from the original incident. Check the published process for the current limits before assuming a complaint is still in time.
Address and operating information
The consolidation of several previously separate ombud schemes into one body is recent enough that older references to the Ombudsman for Short-Term Insurance, the Credit Ombud and the Ombudsman for Banking Services still circulate widely. They now route to the same scheme.
Complain to the financial institution first and get its final response in writing, with a reference number. That document is what the ombud will ask for, and a complaint without it is usually returned.
Gather the policy or account number, the dates, the amounts in dispute and the correspondence. An ombud decides on documents rather than on a phone conversation, so the quality of the file largely determines the outcome.
The scheme publishes its rulings and case studies, which are worth reading before submitting. They show how similar disputes have been decided and often make clear whether a complaint is likely to fall within the scheme’s scope at all.
Where the complaint concerns advice given when a financial product was sold, rather than the institution’s own conduct, the FAIS Ombud is the relevant body. Market conduct concerns about a financial institution go to the Financial Sector Conduct Authority, and credit agreements to the National Credit Regulator.
Sources
Contact details on this page were checked against the National Financial Ombud Scheme’s own contact page, nfosa.co.za, on 30 August 2026. Routes the scheme does not publish are not listed here.