ILC ARTICLE

Motor dominates GI complaints to Ombusdman

4th April 2023

The Financial Ombudsman has received more than 55,250 complaints about motor insurance in the last five years.

This equates to nearly a third (30%) of all general insurance complaints referred, which is nearly double the percentage of the next product line.

Meanwhile, complaints about motor insurance products rose a worrying 49% from the last quarter of 2021 to the same period in 2022, with more than 3,800 complaints recorded.

Building insurance accounted for 16% of all complaints received over the last five years with other product lines receiving large volumes of complaints over this period including travel insurance (12%), home emergency insurance (seven per cent) and home insurance (five per cent).

Across all product lines, 30% of complaints were upheld.

Insurance DataLab co-founder Matt Scott said: “These figures should be worrying news for the insurance industry, especially with the regulatory spotlight shining so brightly on insurers as they grapple with implementing Consumer Duty.

“The regulator has already highlighted complaints figures as an area insurers should be looking at when analysing customer outcomes as part of their Consumer Duty monitoring, and our figures reveal a wide range of results – particularly when it comes to upheld rates.

“The best performers in the market can have upheld rates as low as 10.5%. But at the other end of the market, we are seeing a number of insurers with more than 30% or even 40% of complaints being upheld in favour of the customer – this is clearly not good enough, and with Consumer Duty coming into force this July, insurers need to act fast to remedy this issue.”