Who to complain to in Hawaii
Three separate bodies take complaints about a contractor or an insurer in Hawaii, and they do different things. This is which is which, and what each one can reach.
The three routes
Where a complaint goes in Hawaii
The licensing body
Contractor licensing
Contractors License Board, Professional and Vocational Licensing Division (PVL), Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs (DCCA)
The state's consumer division
Attorney general
DCCA Office of Consumer Protection (OCP), not the Attorney General. Hawaii's consumer protection office sits in DCCA; OCP refers prosecutions to the AG
The insurance regulator
Insurance
Hawaiʻi Insurance Division (DCCA), Compliance and Enforcement Branch
Sourced from each body’s own site.1
What a complaint does
It reviews a license. It does not write you a check.
A regulator looks at conduct and at whether somebody should keep their license. In most states it cannot order a refund, award damages or compel a repair, and the ones that say so say it plainly on their own pages. That makes a complaint worth filing for what it does: a record against the business, and pressure that costs them something, rather than a way of getting paid. Money comes from the routes below.
Money
Is there a fund that pays consumers?
Contractors Recovery Fund (CRF), max $12,500 per contract; licensed contractors only; requires a judgment against the contractor
Next
Before you file
A complaint is read by somebody who has never seen your job, so the order and the dates do most of the work. The evidence checklist is how the file gets built, and a follow-up log is what turns unanswered calls into a record worth attaching.2
Where the money matters more than the record, small claims in Hawaii is the route that can actually order somebody to pay.
Disclosures
- 1.Satisfy is not a law firm and does not provide legal advice. This page lists public bodies that accept consumer complaints and is sourced from each body’s own site. It does not assess any dispute, and it does not say what any body will do with a complaint.
- 2.Which body handles a complaint, what it may require, and what it has power to do are set by each state and change. Agencies reorganize, merge and move their forms. Confirm on the linked page before you rely on anything here, and where a route is missing above it is because we could not confirm it rather than because none exists.