A fitness trainer who suffered a theft of company funds has been denied compensation for a $65,000 income loss he said stemmed from a six-week delay in McLardy McShane lodging his insurance claims.

The delay did not affect decisions by the man’s two insurers, which found the alleged theft by an employee was not covered, the Australian Financial Complaints Authority has found. 

“There is no evidence to suggest the substantive claims would have been accepted by the insurers had they been lodged in a timelier manner,” the authority said.

AFCA’s ombudsman added: “I am not satisfied the complainant has established the [brokerage] caused him to incur any direct or indirect financial loss because of the six-week delay.” 

The authority says $1000 non-financial loss compensation is enough to make up for disruption caused by the brokerage mismanaging aspects of the claim process. Some non-financial loss compensation is appropriate because the unnecessary six-week lodgement delay “would no doubt produce stress and anxiety ... Understandably, the complainant now feels aggrieved.” 

The Perth trainer emailed business interruption, cyber and loss of money claims to McLardy McShane in November 2023, providing police reports and findings from investigators.  

He received no response to that email or a follow-up one the next month, so then complained to AFCA, saying the failure to respond over the Christmas period “exacerbated financial strains and significantly marred the holiday season for me”.  

But he provided no financial, business activity or bank statements, taxation records or earlier revenue comparisons to show he suffered the alleged “loss of business income amounting to $65,000 due to this situation”.

McLardy McShane contacted the policyholder in January 2024 – after notification of his AFCA complaint – and lodged several insurance claims on his behalf.

The brokerage told AFCA it had received no late-2023 emails from the trainer.

An email from its technology provider said: “I can see ... nothing around the 28/11/23 nor the 19/12/23. I have looked 10 days either side of those dates and there is definitely nothing. Therefore, the problem is not coming from our end.  

“The emails sent have either never left the device it originated from, or their domain, or have been rejected by their own domain when sending.”

However, AFCA’s ombudsman is “not persuaded” by that submission because it did not list search parameters, show whether other possible forms of system malfunction were investigated or detail the expert’s experience.

“Absence of this evidence is significant – there is evidence the complainant’s emails to the [brokerage] were successfully sent,” AFCA said.

See the ruling here.