ASIC has warned that a tail of underperforming superannuation trustees risks undermining industry-wide progress on death benefit claims handling, releasing a progress report that found some funds have failed to implement even basic improvements more than a year after the regulator excoriated funds for dragging their feet. 
 
The report, released on Wednesday and titled Delivering on death benefits: Have super trustees stepped up? found evidence of “modest progress in timeframes for processing claims” but that more work is needed.  
 
“There are some promising findings in this report, including a 53 per cent reduction in internal complaints about death benefit delays from early 2024 to late 2025,” ASIC Commissioner Simone Constant said in a release.  
 
“However, with claims volumes increasing by 10 [per cent] in the 12 months to October 2025 and with that growth expected to continue in the context of Australia’s ageing population, it’s clear that more work needs to be done if all trustees are to meet member expectations. 
 
“We’re particularly concerned that some trustees have not actioned basic process improvements and continue exposing grieving beneficiaries to harm at times of heightened emotional and financial distress.” 
 
The report comes more than a year after an ASIC review into claims handling issues in the superannuation industry, which found that none of the trustees it covered monitored or reported on end-to-end death benefit claims handling times, while 27 per cent of claims files reviewed involved poor customer service.  
 
Following the release of that review – which itself followed high profile court cases against AustralianSuper and Cbus – Constant told Investment Magazine that the regulator would scrutinise death benefit processing again within 12 months to make sure that trustees are “doing what they say they’re doing”. 

The new report said that while many trustees have made “positive inroads”, others have “failed to implement basic improvements” in response to the recommendations ASIC made last year, including by failing to streamline the processing of their simple claims or set performance objective for their overall handling of death benefit claims. 
 
“There is no excuse for delays in delivering better outcomes for death benefit claimants,” Constant said. “Trustees that have made positive steps in the right direction should sustain this momentum and ensure they are equipped to manage future service pressures. 
 
“For trustees that have failed to take effective action, our progress review should serve as a wake-up call ahead of the Commonwealth government’s proposed introduction of mandatory member services standards.” 
 
Those standards, announced in January 2025, will have an initial focus on “critical areas” like timely and compassionate handling of death benefits, fair and efficient processing of insurance claims, and clear, respectful and accessible communications with members.