Insurance In Focus

What insurance complaints data tells you

Complaints data shows which products and firms draw the most disputes. Understand what the figures reveal and how often customers win.

Insurance complaints data shows which products and firms generate the most disputes, and how often customers win when they challenge a decision. The main source is the Financial Ombudsman Service, which publishes the volume and outcome of every case it handles. Read well, the numbers tell you where the friction is in the market and which firms handle customers best.

Where the data comes from

Three bodies publish the figures that matter.

  • The Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) reports complaints it receives and how each is resolved, by product and by firm.
  • The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) publishes firm-level complaint data that firms must submit.
  • The Association of British Insurers (ABI) offers market context on claims and conduct.

The FOS data is the most useful for a customer, because it shows not just how many complaints were made but how many were upheld in the customer’s favour.

What the numbers actually mean

A high complaint count is not always a bad sign. A large insurer handles more customers, so it will log more complaints by volume. The figure to watch is the uphold rate: the share of cases the Ombudsman finds in the customer’s favour. A rising uphold rate points to a firm or product where customers are often right.

You should also separate first-tier complaints, made to the firm directly, from those that reach the Ombudsman. Most complaints are resolved by the firm. Only the ones a customer still disputes get to the Ombudsman, and those are the ones published in detail.

How to use it before you buy

The data helps you choose. A firm with a low uphold rate and a falling complaint trend is handling customers well. One with a rising uphold rate across a product line suggests a recurring problem in how it treats claims or renewals. Our guide to how to complain about an insurer or broker explains what to do if you become one of those numbers, and our reference on the Financial Ombudsman Service sets out how disputes are resolved.

The FCA warns against reading too much into a single quarter. Seasonal effects and one-off product changes move the figures, so look at the trend over several periods.

How to read a complaints report

When you open a complaints report, check four things:

  • The product split, because motor and payment-protection disputes run higher than others.
  • The uphold rate, not just the volume.
  • The trend across the last four quarters.
  • Whether a firm’s own data matches the Ombudsman’s view of it.

A firm that reports few complaints but faces a high Ombudsman uphold rate may be rejecting cases it should have paid. The gap between the two is where weak handling hides.

Sources