Why this is worth checking
ATO data shows about 6 in 10 working Australians have held two or more super funds. Each fund's default insurance is a separate insurance contract with separate cover. If you stopped work due to illness or injury, you may be eligible to claim against every fund where you held TPD cover at the relevant time — not just your current fund.
Real-world combined payouts in the $400,000 to $1,500,000 range from "stacked" multi-fund claims are common when claimants have held cover across 3 to 5 funds in their working life.
How to find every super fund you held
- Log into MyGov. Link the ATO if you haven't already. Under "Super," you can see every fund the ATO has on record for you, including funds with $0 balance and lost super accounts.
- Check old payslips. Employers list the super fund they were paying into. Even employers from 10+ years ago may correspond to a fund you still have cover with (or recently had).
- Email previous employers' HR teams. They can confirm which fund(s) they paid your super into, even if the records aren't on MyGov.
- Search lost super. The ATO maintains an unclaimed super register. Many people have insurance attached to lost super they didn't know existed.
The lodgement sequence that works
For multi-fund claims, the most efficient approach is:
- Compile all funds into a single dossier — fund name, member number, dates of membership, cover amount at relevant date
- Get a single set of medical evidence that addresses TPD definitions broadly. The same evidence pack works for all funds with minor adjustments
- Lodge with all funds in parallel on the same day, ideally with identical core evidence so insurers can't argue inconsistency
- Manage each fund's specific requirements separately as they come back with requests
Specialist TPD lawyers do this routinely. Single-fund claims can be self-lodged, but multi-fund claims justify the legal fee through the volume saving alone.
Don't consolidate super before claiming
The biggest mistake people make: consolidating super accounts after stopping work. Rolling out of a fund typically extinguishes the insurance attached to it. Once cancelled, it's gone — even if the claim event happened while you were still a member.
Before any consolidation, take five minutes to confirm whether each fund has insurance attached. If it does, claim first, consolidate after. The cost of holding multiple funds with insurance for an extra few months is trivial compared to the value of the claim.
How members lose this entitlement
Common ways multi-fund cover is lost:
- Auto-consolidation under PYS rules — under the Protecting Your Super reforms, inactive low-balance accounts are auto-transferred to the ATO, cancelling insurance
- Member-initiated consolidation through MyGov or a "rollover" form
- Fund mergers where insurance terms changed and members didn't opt back in
- Default insurance opt-outs at fund joining, often for cost reasons, without realising the value of the cover
- Insurance lapsing due to no contributions for 16 months under the PYS rules
Don't forget income protection
Many super funds bundle TPD with Income Protection (IP) cover. If you held both, you can claim both for the same condition. IP pays an ongoing monthly benefit (typically 75% of pre-disability income) while TPD pays a single lump sum. They are separate products — claiming one does not preclude the other.
See our income protection claim guide for more.
Audit every super fund you've ever held A specialist will pull all your insurance details across funds — typically within 48 hours →