The number of self-reported breaches of the Insurance Brokers Code of Practice jumped 42% last year, while significant cases tripled, the compliance committee’s annual review says.

Committee Chairman Michael Gill says the increase is indicative of a growing culture of reporting, but approaches are inconsistent.

“We would expect most organisations of the same size to see and report similar numbers of breaches and complaints, whereas most code subscribers reported no breaches at all in 2016/17,” he said.

The committee will work with the National Insurance Brokers Association and code subscribers to ensure reporting is a true reflection of performance, Mr Gill says.

The 318 code subscribers are required to complete an annual compliance statement that measures performance against 12 service standards.

Some 134 brokers reported at least one code breach, for a total of 1410 breaches, with just 13 code subscribers accounting for 52% of the total.

Legal obligations on issues such as providing information and documents and Privacy Act requirements represented one-third of transgressions.

Significant breaches, which may also be handled by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, grew to 34 from 11 the previous year.

Internal dispute resolution complaints totalled 1026, unchanged from a year earlier, with 78% resolved within 21 days.

The committee completed an “own motion inquiry” into internal dispute resolution during the year and says it will target an area of emerging risk in another inquiry this financial year.

“This inquiry will be limited in scope and may be restricted to a selection of code subscribers only,” it says

The compliance committee is supported by, but independent from, the Financial Ombudsman Service.