New Zealand Post has paid out nearly half a million dollars in compensation for missing, damaged or delayed mail in the last 13 months.

And figures obtained by the Waikato Times under the Official Information Act show nearly $12,000 of the $492,901 was paid out to customers in the Waikato.

The data reveals that in the 13 months to May 1, 2013, NZ Post made 219 compensation payments in the Waikato region, with 91 per cent for ''missing items''.

Nationally they made 5567 compensation payments, with 85 per cent missing items. The rest was either delayed, damaged or failed to be delivered.

In the same period they received 1926 initial ''missing'' mail complaints from Waikato customers, and a 52,842 nationwide.

But NZ Post communications manager Michael Tull said that many of these, upon investigation, related to mail that wasn't actually missing and eventually showed up.

Nationally, more than 40 per cent of the initial complaints were resolved by the item eventually arriving.

''In the interest of proportionality, it is also important to note that the complaints relate to a period of time in which New Zealand Post handled approximately 750 million pieces of mail.

''So in this 13-month period, nationally New Zealand Post received 1 complaint for every 14,200 mail items placed in our care - a complaint ratio of 0.0007 per cent.''