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Reasonable effort to contact the member

How to exercise reasonable effort to contact your member if they become lost.

Last updated 2 December 2025

Reasonable attempts to contact

You should make reasonable attempts to contact your member if they become lost.

Follow-up action to locate members might include:

  • checking your own database to see if the member has other accounts with more current information
  • contacting an employer who was contributing to the account
  • engaging an organisation, like Australia Post, to undertake database searches to locate the member.

Factors to consider when determining what action and effort is reasonable may include:

  • the information you have in relation to the member
  • the activity patterns on the member’s account
  • the type of super account – for example, employer-sponsored membership or individual membership
  • the type of employment the member is engaged in – for example, transient employment, long-term with the same employer, working within a particular industry
  • the account balance
  • the costs of the different methods in attempting to contact the member.

Transfer of lost member

A member of a fund is still taken to be a lost member at a particular time if either:

  • the member joined the fund from another fund or an Exempt Public Sector Super scheme as a lost member
  • the member joined the fund from the RSA provider as a lost RSA holder.

unless

  • the super provider has verified the member's address is correct within the last 2 years and has no reason to believe that the address is now incorrect
  • the member is permanently excluded from being a lost member.

For more information, see Reporting account changes.

 

QC82669