ABI acts on “misleading” Financial Ombudsman data

by Gill Montia

Story link: ABI acts on “misleading” Financial Ombudsman data

The Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) has published details of the complaints received about UK financial institutions, and for the first time has named the insurance companies, banks, and investment firms that feature in its statistics.

The figures cover the six months to the end of June 2009 and show the number of complaints received about individual businesses and the percentage of complaints upheld by the ombudsman in favour of consumers.

However, the Association of British Insurers (ABI) has responded to the move by calling the firm-specific data misleading.

The body’s director of consumer strategy, Maggie Craig, agrees that consumers should know about the performance of individual firms but insists that any such data must be presented in a way that helps consumers make informed choices.

According to Ms Craig: “The way that the FOS has chosen to present the data doesn’t achieve this aim, and may in fact mislead consumers about the performance of individual firms.”

To remedy this, the ABI has brought together data showing the number of complaints in the context of the overall quantity of different types of insurance policy.

The ABI release can be viewed at http://www.abi.org.uk/Media/Releases/2009/09/43759.pdf