‘Consumers left on hold for too long’: Super Consumers Australia

Super Consumers Australia have spoken out about ASIC’s review on superannuation funds that found sub-standard arrangements for managing complaints.

It urged super funds to “stop talking about putting members first and actually respond to complaints on time”. 

The ASIC review, published in December, found numerous trustees had failed to respond to complaints within the mandated maximum timeframe of 45 days and failed to keep complainants informed. 

Trustees’ internal reporting also lacked sufficient details to identify deficiencies in complaints handling.

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“Consumers have been left on hold for too long, it’s time for super funds to stop talking about putting members first and actually respond to complaints on time. 

“Perversely, super funds lobbied for longer response times than banks and insurers and now we find they can’t even keep to these generous timeframes,” said Xavier O’Halloran, director at Super Consumers Australia.

He highlighted the positive case of one super fund that responded to 99% of its complaints within the 45-day timeframe. This was bolstered by processes like ensuring individual staff were accountable for properly classifying complaints and escalating complaints which were at risk of being delayed.

“Clearly the industry has a lot to learn from this super fund. There needs to be greater transparency of claims-handling delays and customer service outcomes in general. At the moment, consumers have little idea of what they can expect when selecting a super fund,” O’ Halloran added.  

He urged the specific fund to “come forward and share its experience with the rest of the industry.”

For the review, ASIC had selected 35 trustees of super funds which had at least 50,000 members and predominantly over $10 billion in assets as at 30 June, 2021. In a more detailed review of a subset of 10 trustees, it chose funds which had approximately $361 billion in assets across 5.1 million member accounts.

“We saw examples of trustees’ failure to comply with fundamental obligations, which could lead to poor outcomes, such as consumers abandoning a complaint rather than seeing it through. While a few trustees did the right thing, in many cases there were serious deficiencies in trustees’ dispute resolution processes and how they monitored and responded to complaints,” stated Danielle Press, ASIC commissioner.