A boom in companies promising to help customers access their superannuation savings for a slew of dental and medical procedures online is draining hundreds of millions of dollars from Australians’ retirement pools, prompting warnings from Labor of a potential crackdown.

The value of super withdrawn for dental treatments nationally jumped 373 per cent to $313 million from 2019 to 2023, and medical procedures now account for 96 per cent of all withdrawals approved on compassionate grounds.