The Financial Ombudsman Service backed the insurance industry in eight out of ten cases last year, according to the Association of British Insurers.
Their annual customer complaints benchmarking survey found that more than three quarters of the 900,000 complaints received by the insurance industry in the past twelve months were dealt with within 8 weeks, and most insurers upheld half of the complaints they received.
In most cases, compensation was provided to the customer within a month of the decision being made, but around 5% of the complaints were passed on to the Financial Ombudsman Service, which agreed with the insurers on 8 out of 10 cases.
Our view
We believe the industry has become wise to people who have tried to 'jump on the complaints bandwagon'. Legitimate complaints will be handled properly and those that are not appear to be being picked up.