The Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA) has spent three months trialling a new procedure of more quickly declining some complaints that lack merit, where it found compelling reasons.

About 120 cases were identified for review under the pilot and 106 were closed after AFCA determined the complainant had not suffered loss or the financial firm had not made an error.

AFCA’s 40,000 members were informed of the trial, which the dispute resolution body now hopes to make a permanent feature of its system, during a virtual forum last week.

“We are taking action. We are taking it seriously,” COO Justin Untersteiner told the forum that attracted about 700 attendees.

The pilot came after brokers called for a “more robust” triage system to address potential gaming of the system and prevent firms paying disproportionately high costs in some low-value matters.

A National Insurance Brokers Association (NIBA) submission from April said that, as intermediaries, firms can bear costs relating to issues arising from actions taken by insurers, even when there is no real basis for the complaints against the broker.

AFCA says the new process better scrutinises certain complaints at the very early stages of its process. After contacting the consumers and members on these cases, there were only a small number that objected to its assessment.

The time taken to complete these cases halved and the average fee was $890, compared with fees closed at the determination stage of up to $4000.

“We are currently in the process of finalising our review of this pilot and we hope to make this change a permanent feature of our system. We do believe it will go a long way to addressing the feedback you have given us,” Mr Untersteiner told AFCA members.

AFCA told forum attendees it manages 70,000-plus cases each year and publishes more than 5000 decisions.

In general insurance, there were 16,912 complaints in the year to June 30, with 4386 related to comprehensive motor, 3527 home building, 2477 travel, 1079 home contents and 934 uninsured third party motor.

More than $71.1 million in compensation to general insurance customers was awarded by AFCA, with 69% of complaints resolved by agreement or in favour of the complainant.

The average time to close a general insurance complaint was 88 days, compared to 74 days across all financial services and 124 days in life insurance.

See Analysis.