The Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA) has expressed disappointment at another record year of complaints. Disputes reaching the ombudsman service rose a further 9% to more than 105,000 in 2023-24. However, life insurance and financial advice complaints do not appear to be a factor.
Notwithstanding more detailed data sets are still to be released, the lack of any reference to life insurance or financial advice complaints in this summary release would tend to indicate these areas constitute a very minor proportion of the complaints managed by the regulator.
AFCA’s preliminary data snapshot showed scams were a key driver, along with a surge in complaints about comprehensive motor vehicle insurance, contributing to record complaints in the banking and finance and general insurance sectors.
In its 2022-23 Annual Review AFCA said it received 1,898 life insurance complaints, which made up 2% of the nearly 97,000 total complaints it received that year (see: Jump in Complaints About Delays in Claims Handling).
“While we haven’t seen the scale of increase we experienced a year ago, these record numbers are still too high,” Chief Ombudsman David Locke says of the 105,454 complaints in 2023-24. This followed an unprecedented 34% jump in complaints a year earlier.
Banking and finance complaints rose 11% to 59,636 and general insurance complaints 4% to 29,096, as of the preliminary snapshot at June 30.
AFCA says scam-related complaints rose 81% to 10,951 in 2023-24, averaging 913 a month compared with 504 a month the previous financial year.
Locke noted that AFCA had started to see instances of sophisticated scam activity in the superannuation sector.