FOS - Any experiences?

David_InsDef

Not related to a specific problem but wondering whether anybody on here has gone through the Financial Ombudsman complaints process and seen it through to completion?


There's almost 2000 pages worth of threads on the Insurance / Life Assurance forum, many of which contain reference to the FOS as an avenue to recourse.


I'm just wondering how many disgruntled policyholders don't see their issue through to conclusion and what does the process looks / feels like for those who are suitably motivated to see it through? From memory, the last set of FOS data suggested general insurance complaints (excluding PPI) took on average 4-5 months to conclude - with the insurer having 8 weeks to issue a final response it seems that it's a pretty slow-burn process to get to a decision from the FOS?


Any thoughts / views?

hugoshavez

Seen plenty, though not from the policyholder's point of view.

The truth is that individual cases are dealt with on their merits, and more complex cases are likely to take 1-2 years to make it through adjudication and final ruling by an ombudsman.

How many people grudgingly accept a complaint response from their insurer? How many disgruntled customers don't bother to make a complaint in the first place? Who knows? How could you know?

David_InsDef

hugoshavez wrote: »

Seen plenty, though not from the policyholder's point of view.

The truth is that individual cases are dealt with on their merits, and more complex cases are likely to take 1-2 years to make it through adjudication and final ruling by an ombudsman.

How many people grudgingly accept a complaint response from their insurer? How many disgruntled customers don't bother to make a complaint in the first place? Who knows? How could you know?

Indeed - it's the unknown unknowns.


It seems a reasonable proportion of complaints looked at by the FOS are upheld in the consumers' favour (although I know that includes partially upheld and cases that are simply a knuckle-wrap for the insurer / Broker). It just seems that it's a bit of a trudge to get to what I suppose you could call 'justice'.

InsideInsurance

You can see the upheld rate for each regulated entity on the web, its amazing how wide the spread is and clearly shows different strategies being used on complaints handling.

Personally been through the FOS 3 times, twice for banking and once for insurance. Both banking complaints were upheld and reasonable compensation awarded but the insurance one was rejected but I did get compensation from the FOS themselves for their miss handling of the case.

OnanTheBarbarian

Which ombudsman do you complain to about the ombudsman?

David_InsDef

InsideInsurance wrote: »

You can see the upheld rate for each regulated entity on the web, its amazing how wide the spread is and clearly shows different strategies being used on complaints handling.

Personally been through the FOS 3 times, twice for banking and once for insurance. Both banking complaints were upheld and reasonable compensation awarded but the insurance one was rejected but I did get compensation from the FOS themselves for their miss handling of the case.

The number of categories where the upheld rate is > 50% is startling. The company-level data is quite a revelation too. I guess the graveness of complaints sit on a scale also, but I'd hate to be in the situation where you've lost a key asset and face a lengthy journey through the process.

InsideInsurance

OnanTheBarbarian wrote: »

Which ombudsman do you complain to about the ombudsman?

They mark their own homework on that one initially and then have an independent assessor.

On the basis I was having to explain the them the law of limitations I never had much faith that they'd really grasp the issues of my complaint which arguably was more complex legal concepts than time limits.

David_InsDef

OnanTheBarbarian wrote: »

Which ombudsman do you complain to about the ombudsman?

I was going to make a quip about taking hostages - but y'know, that kind of humour on public forums is frowned upon nowadays ....

magpiecottage

InsideInsurance wrote: »

On the basis I was having to explain the them the law of limitations I never had much faith that they'd really grasp the issues of my complaint which arguably was more complex legal concepts than time limits.

That is because they simply disregard anything they do not like.

oscarward

My experience of the ombudsman was:....


I had a problem with an insurance company via building society, after a few heated calls I gave up talking to them.


So I rang FOS who were very helpful and took details and advised I didn't need to talk to the building society but would take a case and confirm to me.


So they wrote to insurers MD and me, insurers MD immediately contacted BS who contacted me.


An amicable solution was reached without taking it further

Parking_Trouble

Had a case partially upheld against an insurer. They were very helpful and will raise the case for you. Personally I think it is best to word it yourself to get all your points across.

Whole process took far too long due the the PPI frenzy.

They have a reputation for making weird decisions.