General insurance disputes made up 26.1% of the total disputes handled by the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) in the March quarter.

But the figure was up only slightly on the corresponding period last year and was in line with the previous quarter. Most of the 6% rise in total disputes handled by FOS was attributed to other industries.

FOS says disputes in the credit, deposit-taking, investment and life insurance sectors continue to be the main factors involved in the higher numbers.

Chief Ombudsman Shane Tregillis says FOS is going through a significant period of change and that work has started on actions to reduce backlogs and shorten the time taken to deal with new disputes.

The changes, which include fast-tracking decisions for simpler and low-value disputes, replacing the two-step dispute lodgement process with a one-step process and adding specialist expertise earlier, will be fully implemented by July 1 next year.

Accepted disputes – the step where the service becomes actively involved – were 4% higher at 5933 than in the corresponding quarter last year.

FOS closed 7919 disputes in the March quarter, with 54% resolved by financial service providers.