The chair of the Superannuation Complaints Tribunal (SCT), Jocelyn Furlan, has urged 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.
The research house has offered a silver lining after super fund returns saw the end of a five-month streak last month.
A survey of almost 6,000 fund members has identified weakening retirement confidence, particularly among those under 55 years of age, signalling an opportunity for super funds to better engage with members on their retirement journey.
The funds have confirmed the signing of a successor fund transfer deed, moving closer to creating a new $29 billion entity.
A number of measures, including super on Paid Parental Leave, funding to recover unpaid super, and frameworks to encourage investment in the energy transition, have been welcomed by the superannuation industry.
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