AFCA continues to see much higher complaint numbers in FY23 across all sectors, with December 2022 complaint volumes up 24% compared to December 2021.  

This follows more than 9,000 complaints in November 2022 and more than 8,000 complaints in October 2022.  

AFCA has now received 45,704 complaints since 1 July 2022 – a 33% increase compared the first six months of the previous financial year (1 July to 31 December 2021), where AFCA received 34,476 complaints. 

As a result of these high volumes, AFCA is experiencing some delays in allocating and progressing complaints – particularly in insurance. 

While AFCA is increasing the size of its team to better support and help resolve disputes – including by actively recruiting and re-assigning staff to high-impact product areas, and setting up specialised teams to handle flood-related and hardship complaints – the record number of complaints means we may continue to experience delays. 

To ensure the timely and efficient resolution of complaints, AFCA encourages firms to explore ways to improve the resolution of complaints before they reach AFCA, or in the early stages of AFCA’s process.  

Early resolution of complaints is good for both complainants and firms and enables AFCA to prioritise complex or particularly urgent complaints – such as those relating to financial hardship.

December overview

In December 2022, AFCA received 5,738 complaints, up 24% from December 2021.  

AFCA closed 31% more complaints in December 2022 than it did in December 2021 (6,235 complaints compared to 4,754 complaints).  

Nearly 60% of complaints closed in December 2022 were resolved at Registration and Referral, while 6% were closed at Rules, 31% at Case Management and 5% at Decision.

Banking and finance complaints 

Nearly 3,000 banking and finance complaints were lodged with AFCA in December 2022 (excluding financial difficulty complaints) – up 12% from December 2021.  

AFCA continues to see a spike in complaints about personal transaction accounts, predominately driven by unauthorised transaction issues. Personal transaction accounts were the most complained about banking and finance product in December 2022, with 884 complaints received – up 98% from December 2021.  

General insurance complaints 

AFCA received 1,557 general insurance complaints in December 2022, a 46% increase compared to December 2021.  

Nearly 40% of general insurance complaints lodged in December were about home building matters, followed by motor vehicle – comprehensive (31%) and travel insurance (7%).  

As seen in November 2022, delay in claim handling was the most common issue raised in December 2022 (29% of general insurance complaints), followed by claim amount (17%) and denial of claim – exclusion/condition (16%). 

Investment and advice complaints 

Investment and advice complaints saw a 121% increase in December 2022 compared to December 2021 (331 compared to 150). This was primarily driven by foreign exchange complaints which made up a third of all investment and advice complaints last month. 

The most common issues among investment and advice complaints were failure to follow instructions/agreement, service quality and failure to act in client’s best interest.  

Superannuation and life insurance complaints 

Superannuation and life insurance complaints both saw decreases in December 2022 compared to December 2021.  

AFCA received 351 super complaints and 111 life insurance complaints in December 2022, compared to 371 and 168 respectively in December 2021.