Annual Review 2021–22
Contents
- About this Annual Review
- Year at a glance
- Acknowledgement of country
- Board Chair message
- Chief Executive Officer and Chief Ombudsman message
- Organisational overview
- AFCA Independent Review
- Complaints
- Who complained to AFCA?
- Overview of complaints
- Open cases
- Closed cases
- Banking and finance complaints
- Buy now pay later
- Financial difficulty complaints
- Scams
- Small business complaints
- General insurance complaints
- Significant events
- Life insurance complaints
- Superannuation complaints
- Investments and advice complaints
- Cryptocurrency
- Complaints lodged by consumer advocates and financial counsellors
- Legacy complaints
- Complaints outside AFCA’s Rules
- Systemic issues
- Code compliance and monitoring
- Previous schemes
- Engagement, awareness and accessibility
- Corporate information
- AFCA General Purpose Financial Report 2021–22
- Appendix 1
- Glossary
Significant events
AFCA activates significant event response plans for events that could potentially result in large numbers of related complaints being lodged with AFCA, such as natural disasters and severe weather events.
The significant event response plan provides for early communication with relevant stakeholders, and a more streamlined, expedited process for the resolution of related complaints.
AFCA also regularly engages with industry including ASIC, the Federal Treasury and APRA, as well as industry representatives, such as the ICA, to ensure our approach to handling these disputes is appropriate.
In the last financial year, AFCA activated three significant event response plans to support those directly impacted.
These related to:
- Victorian earthquakes – September 2021
- South Australia, Victoria and Tasmania severe storms – October 2021
- South East Queensland and New South Wales severe weather and flooding – February 2022.
In total, AFCA received 5,202 complaints related to significant events in 2021–22 (including those related to significant events that had been declared in previous financial years). This is significantly down on the previous year’s numbers, where we received 9,097 complaints about significant events, which can be attributed to the decrease in COVID-19 complaints.
However, the majority of 2021–22 significant event complaints (3,552) still related to COVID-19, which was declared a significant event in 2019–20.
COVID-19
3,552 complaints received. Down 57% from previous year
3,939 complaints resolved
1,142 complaints related to financial difficulty
Top five issues in complaints
Issue |
Total |
---|---|
Financial firms’ failure to respond to request for assistance |
721 |
Repayment history information |
337 |
Decline of financial difficulty request |
311 |
Service quality |
282 |
Default listing |
252 |
Victorian earthquakes – September 2021
382 complaints received
167 complaints resolved
Top five issues in complaints 1
Issue |
Total |
---|---|
Denial of claim – exclusion /condition |
229 |
Delay in claims handling |
81 |
Denial of claim |
49 |
Claim amount |
26 |
Service quality |
11 |
Denial of claim – no proof of loss |
11 |
South East Queensland and New South Wales severe weather and flooding – February 2022
456 complaints received
198 complaints resolved
12 complaints related to financial difficulty
Top five issues in complaints
Issue |
Total |
---|---|
Delay in claims handling |
210 |
Denial of claim – exclusion /condition |
107 |
Claim amount |
83 |
Service quality |
22 |
Denial of claim |
19 |
South Australia, Victoria and Tasmania severe storms – October 2021
161 complaints received
102 complaints resolved
Top five issues in complaints
Issue |
Total |
---|---|
Delay in claims handling |
67 |
Claim amount |
50 |
Denial of claim – exclusion /condition |
34 |
Denial of claim |
14 |
Service quality |
12 |
1 Two issues in equal fifth position.