What do I do if things go really, really wrong?

So, Deborah says, just a brief comment in response to your answer, Susan, regarding the government being able to seize your correspondent's husband's KiwiSaver.

Given it happened in Cyprus, presumably it can happen here, says Deborah.

Susan, what do you reckon?

So what I said last week for those who missed it is that your money in KiwiSaver is safe.

It's held on trust for you.

There's a supervisor making sure the provider does the right thing.

It's as much your money as money in the bank is your money, if that makes sense.

The government can't just decide it wants a bit.

All right, so what we're doing here is the well actually for that question, right?

That's right.

So very briefly, Cyprus had a major economic crisis just over a decade ago, which was kicked off by the GFC, which was bad news all around the world, and then was not helped by the Greek government having its own major problems at the same time.

And the government received a massive bailout in return for agreeing to close the country's second largest bank.

imposing a one-time levy on all uninsured deposits.

So 47.5% of bank deposits above €100,000 were taken as part of that process.

Not

great.

But this is clearly very much a worst-case scenario.

closing to avoid runs on them, that sort of thing.

I personally think that in this sort of meltdown, our KiwiSaver probably isn't going to be our primary concern.