Source: Insurance Age | 25 Aug 2015
Categories: Insurer
Tags: Direct Line | Ageas | RSA | Axa | Aviva | PPI |complaint handling | FOS
Axa and Ageas complete top three at Financial Ombudsman Service.
The Financial Ombudsman Service has revealed the most complained about firms for the first six months of 2015.
Direct Line was outed as the most complained against firm in general insurance (excluding payment protection insurance) with the ombudsman receiving 1,536 new cases.
Axa came in second in the same category with 636 cases and Ageas totalled 493 new complaints.
Completing the top five were Aviva and RSA with 466 and 444 customers respectively dissatisfied with the business’ response to their complaint.
Overall
A spokesperson for the ombudsman confirmed that total number of general insurance cases received in the period was up again at 16,378.
In the previous six months from July to December it received 14,164 cases and in the same January to June period of 2014 it saw 15,539 complaints.
The figures came as the ombudsman stated that it took on a total of 173,994 new cases in the first half of 2015 – an overall increase of 8% on the previous period when it received 161,649 complaints.
PPI
According to the FOS, the number of PPI complaints actually fell by 10% but there were still 94,091 making up over half – 55% – of its total workload.
For complaints about financial products other than PPI, the number increased to 79,550, a rise of 45%.
The watchdog said this was largely the result of an increase in complaints about packaged bank account complaints brought by claims-management companies during this period.
Volatility
Chief ombudsman Caroline Wayman said: “It’s been seven years since the ombudsman first began to publish data about individual financial businesses.
“This has coincided with a period of volatility and challenge for much of the financial services sector – and this is still reflected in the data we publish today.
She added: “Complaints about PPI continue to make up over half of our workload. And though the number of new PPI cases has reduced in the first half of this year, the decline has not been as steady or as marked as generally expected.
“This is as least in part due to the continued high levels of activity by claims managers in this area.”
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