As the major insurers seek to get their group insurance books back in order, the Superannuation Complaints Tribunal (SCT) has reported a surge in conciliation conferences involving both superannuation funds and their insurers.
The SCT has reported an 89 per cent increase in conciliation conferences this financial year, something which has prompted the SCT chair, Jocelyn Furlan, to urge superannuation funds not to wait until a matter is actually referred to the tribunal before seeking to find ways of resolving issues.
Furlan has used the SCT’s latest quarterly newsletter to urge superannuation funds to attempt to resolve disputes with members before they are actually escalated to the SCT.
She noted that in the last financial year the SCT had conducted 424 conciliation conferences and that for the first six months of the current financial year it had experienced an 89 per cent increase, conducting 359 conferences.
“The Tribunal considers conciliation is the most cost-effective and efficient way of resolving complaints and is under a statutory obligation to try and resolve complaints within its jurisdiction by conciliation,” Furlan said.
However she said that in some cases fund trustees and insurers were not “still not adequately prepared for the conciliation conference and an increasing number of conciliation conferences have to be adjourned in order for the trustee or insurer representative to obtain further instructions and/or seek approval from the business area before making an offer to resolve the complaint”.
Furlan said that trustees and insurers needed to ensure that their representatives had the authority to resolve the complaint.
