Nearly half of all general insurance written in Australia flows through brokers, yet the channel generates less than 1% of total complaints lodged with the Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA). New consumer research from the National Insurance Brokers Association (NIBA) adds a further data point: 98% of claims handled with broker involvement were successfully resolved, according to client surveys. Taken together, those figures arrive at a moment when claims handling has become a named Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) enforcement priority and AFCA complaint volumes have hit a third consecutive record.
Australians lodged a record 119,949 complaints with AFCA in 2025-26 – the highest annual volume on record and the third consecutive year complaints exceeded 100,000. Delay in claim handling, service quality, and claim rejection were the three most complained-about issues across the period. General insurance sits at the centre of that trend. AFCA received 34,231 general insurance complaints in 2024-25, a 17% increase on the prior year. AFCA chief ombudsman and CEO David Locke has been direct about what those numbers require of the sector. “Persistently high volumes of complaints about general insurance demonstrates there is more to be done by the sector to prevent complaints reaching AFCA, particularly in cases where escalation could have been avoided if the issue was simply a claim delay,” Locke said.
Regulators have moved beyond commentary to enforcement. ASIC designated insurance claims handling an enforcement priority in 2025. In April 2025, it commenced proceedings against Hollard Insurance Partners Limited for allegedly breaching its duty of utmost good faith in the handling of a home building and contents claim that took nearly three and a half years to resolve. A follow-up review of home insurer action plans found progress remained inconsistent across the sector. ASIC found insurers lacked a systemic approach to overseeing independent expert reports and generally relied on claims-handling staff who may not have had the required subject matter expertise to identify errors.
The broker channel’s complaint profile diverges from the broader market. General insurance broker complaints increased to 788 from 447 in the prior financial year – representing approximately 0.8% of total AFCA complaints for 2024-25. That figure carries material weight when set against market scale: according to NIBA’s June 2026 report Data to Direction: Insights from the General Insurance Broking Profession, Australian insurance brokers manage $35.6 billion in intermediated gross written premiums – nearly half, at 46%, of all general insurance written in Australia within a $77.9 billion market.
Locke raised a caveat about the low broker complaint figure when addressing the 2024 NIBA Convention, noting that the low number could indicate that “clients are unaware they can complain about a broker in addition to an insurer,” while also acknowledging that brokers may be resolving disputes before they escalate. “While you do not have the same volume of complaints as general insurance, which have increased by 81% since AFCA’s inception, it would be a mistake to be complacent,” he said. That caveat is relevant context: the sub-1% complaint share reflects a pattern, but it does not in itself rule out underreporting.
NIBA’s February 2026 consumer research report, Complexity to Clarity: The Broker Advantage, produced in partnership with Insurance Advisernet and independent research firm CoreData, found that 98% of broker-supported claims were successfully resolved. A further 91% of respondents said broker involvement contributed to a better outcome, 95% identified brokers as critical to claims resolution, and clients reported saving an average of 7.2 hours during the claims process – part of a broader 20-business-hour saving across the full insurance process.
The research has an important methodological limitation when assessing the broker channel against the wider market: its respondents were businesses that currently use or have recently used a broker, rather than a representative sample of all Australian insurance buyers, including businesses that purchase cover directly. The 98% figure therefore describes the reported experience of broker users; it does not establish that broker-supported claims are more successful than directly handled claims. There does not appear to be a publicly available independent dataset providing a directly comparable claims-outcomes benchmark for businesses that purchase general insurance without a broker. AFCA complaint data can provide broader context on complaints and disputes, but it is not a like-for-like measure of claims success.
NIBA’s Claims Committee, which held its inaugural meeting on August 11, 2026, is designed to formalise the profession’s position on claims issues at the regulatory and industry level. The committee draws together senior claims practitioners from Lockton, Gallagher, Marsh, Willis, Envest Broking, Network Insurance House, and Austbrokers Comsure, with Adam Squire of Lockton as chair. Its stated mandate covers identifying systemic claims problems, providing perspectives on emerging issues, and supporting NIBA’s engagement with government, regulators, insurers, and the Insurance Council of Australia (ICA).
Squire said the committee addresses the need for a coordinated professional voice on claims outcomes. “Claims are where trust is built or lost, and brokers play a critical role in making sure clients are supported when it matters most. This Committee gives the profession a clear, coordinated voice on the issues affecting claims outcomes, and I’m looking forward to working with such an experienced group of brokers to drive meaningful change,” he said.
NIBA CEO Richard Klipin pointed to the research data as the basis for the committee's priorities. “Our research shows that 98% of claims supported by a broker are successfully resolved, and 91% of clients say their broker’s involvement led to a better outcome. Those numbers reflect exactly why this Committee matters: claims are where brokers earn client trust, and this group will help ensure that trust continues to grow,” Klipin said.
