The corporate regulator has revealed the next steps in its push to fix systemic failings in the superannuation sector\u2019s handling of death benefit payments.<\/p>\n
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission will examine how super trustees address complaints data after it found excessive delays in death benefit payments, causing \u201csignificant distress\u201d for grieving family members.<\/p>\n
Rising complaint numbers should have served as an early warning sign for trustees to address the issues themselves, preventing the need for the watchdog to intervene, ASIC chair Joe Longo told an American Chamber of Commerce event.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut sadly, our work across the sector has exposed its shortcomings and blind spots,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Death benefits refer to the superannuation balance left in a member\u2019s account after they die, as well as payments from disability and income protection insurance, which a beneficiary \u2013 usually a family member \u2013 is entitled to be paid as soon as practicable.<\/p>\n
Of 10 super funds reviewed by ASIC, none of them processed more than half their death benefits claims within three months, with the slowest processing just eight per cent in that time.<\/p>\n
\u201cMany trustees didn\u2019t even monitor how long their open death benefit claims had been going \u2013 was a claim 90 days old or 500 days old? If the trustees had done this \u2013 as we did \u2013 they would have found that claims went unresolved for months and sometimes years,\u201d Mr Longo said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf trustees had acted on this data \u2013 as we did \u2013 they may not be facing enforcement action.\u201d<\/p>\n
As part of ASIC\u2019s multi-year project to wake superannuation boards out of their torpor, the regulator will begin gathering information from selected entities about their complaints handling processes in the second half of 2025.<\/p>\n
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Ignorance is no excuse for super funds failing their customers, Mr Longo warned, reminding trustees that it is already an enforceable requirement to regularly analyse complaints data to identify systemic issues.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo a failure of data, systems, and processes doesn\u2019t just let their members down \u2013 it means trustees are failing to comply with their obligations,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd, where appropriate, ASIC will pursue enforcement action in response to that failure.\u201d<\/p>\n
Peak super body, the Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia, has apologised for the death benefits failings and said improvements were already underway.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe superannuation sector knows we have let down some of our members and their families at a time when they needed us, and we are sorry,\u201d ASFA CEO Mary Delahunty said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile the majority of our members and their families have a seamless experience with death benefits claims, we know we need to do better to make sure this is the experience of as many people as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The corporate regulator has revealed the next steps in its push to fix systemic failings in the superannuation…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":94022,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[64,63,99,186,184,185],"class_list":{"0":"post-94021","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-finance","12":"tag-personal-finance","13":"tag-personalfinance"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94021","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94021"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94021\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94022"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}