Insurance sector complaints to Ombudsman double

by Gill Montia

Story link: Insurance sector complaints to Ombudsman double

The Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS), which resolves disputes between consumers and financial services businesses, has published data covering the 12 months to March 2008.

Complaints about insurance providers doubled during the period, however disputes over mortgage endowment products fell, by 70%.

The number of customers dissatisfied with their payment protection insurance increased six-fold to almost 11,000; the majority of complaints related to the way in which policies had been sold, rather than rejected claims.

According to the FOS report, 2007/08 saw the slowdown in the number of disputes about health insurance, travel insurance and some investment products continue and this has been related to areas where specific initiatives have improved standards of customer service.

The UK’s six leading financial services groups were named in half of the complaints, although this proportion is roughly in line with the amount of business they carry out.

Complaints across all sectors rose 30% during the 12 month period, with disputes about charges made on bank current accounts increasing ten-fold.

Disgruntled consumers made 123,089 complains and 794,648 enquiries in all.