{"id":81226,"date":"2026-02-26T12:41:35","date_gmt":"2026-02-26T01:41:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/?p=81226"},"modified":"2026-03-06T10:37:28","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T23:37:28","slug":"afca-records-record-complaint-numbers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/2026\/02\/26\/afca-records-record-complaint-numbers\/","title":{"rendered":"AFCA Reveals Record Complaint Numbers"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"header row\">\n<div class=\"intro\">\n<h3> AFCA\u2019s highest-ever complaint tally, led by issues around timeliness and transparency, struck a chord with advisers this week&#8230;<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>AFCA received a record number of complaints last year, up 14% on the 2024 figure to 111,373.<\/p>\n<p>The increase in complaints was spread across all financial products, and while those relating about death benefits remained steady, the main issues were timeliness and transparency.<\/p>\n<p>Last year the free ombudsman service received 6,362 denial of claim complaints, 9,274 related to delays in claim handling, and 8,457 were about misleading information.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_66886\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-66886\" style=\"width: 150px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-66886\" src=\"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/files\/2023\/07\/AFCA_David-Locke_20210507_0054-e1711418207412.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"186\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-66886\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">David Locke<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Chief Ombudsman and AFCA CEO <strong>David Locke<\/strong> said a 29% rise in superannuation complaints (7,687) in 2025 was largely driven by delays in handling claims and disputes over claim decisions.<\/p>\n<p>Large scale collapses in the financial advice sector resulted in a 58% increase in investment and advice complaints, including a 59% increase in complaints from self-managed superannuation funds. This includes 2,162 complaints relating to the collapse of the Shield (843) and First Guardian Master (1,319) Funds.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis data highlights the sustained demand for our service, and with a new Banking Code now in force, and major reforms underway across general and life insurance, this is a pivotal moment for the financial services sector to lift standards and deliver more consistent, accessible and customer focused outcomes for their customers,\u201d said Locke.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>AFCA\u2019s highest-ever complaint tally, led by issues around timeliness and transparency, struck a chord with advisers this week&#8230; AFCA received a record number of complaints last year, up 14% on the 2024 figure to 111,373. The increase in complaints was spread across all financial products, and while those relating about death benefits remained steady, the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":81229,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[282,8,8291],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-81226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-associations","category-compliance-regulation","category-story-of-the-week"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81226"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81226\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}