Poor service when complaining about poor customer service to my Ins company!!

Officechick

Hi there, I am hoping someone can please help. I have had the most terrible service from our house ins company (throughout 2020). I complained within the firm through their complaints channel but it then stalled and they stopped answering my emails. I logged it on Resolver (early 2021 by this point) and they didnt pick up the complaint there either so I escalated it to the Financial Ombudsman (May 2021). They had a back log and didnt start to look at it till October 2021 and have been able to help with some of it (there were terrible issues with price inconsistencies / errors) but tell me they cant help with holding a company to account for poor service (and they are still making errors ie I was due a refund of approx £500 and they under paid me!). Who do i go to to help the insurance company realise their dreadful service is the root of this problem? Thanks in advance

Sandtree

Finish your year and move on. 

The FOS certainly will award compensation for poor service but it’ll be proportional to the level of the issue and the impact it had on you. If it’s just you had to call back after being cut off then clearly anything is going to be token 

You however have to go through the complaint and escalation for each issue faced

Thrugelmir

The insurance company will be aware of it's shortcomings. The pandemic has created no end of problems. That many people tend to assume shouldn't of have impacted the service they received. 

dunstonh

but tell me they cant help with holding a company to account for poor service 

That is correct.  It is not their remit.  They are independent arbiters in complaints.  They are not consumer champions.

Who do i go to to help the insurance company realise their dreadful service is the root of this problem?

That is not your role and the best thing to do is vote with your feet and be vocal with others about your issues.

Aretnap

You don't really say what the poor service was, how it affected you, or what you want done to put it right. So it's hard to be specific.

If you suffered a tangible loss as a result, for example if you were left homeless because they forgot to arrange alternative accommodation after a house fire, then the Financial Ombudsman will compensate you for the expenses you incurred, and the stress and anxiety it caused you.

On the other hand if the staff were just generally not very helpful and it took too more phone calls than it should have done to resolve a problem then the FOS is going to give you token compensation at best, and the way you hold them to account is to take your business elsewhere, leave a bad review on Trustpilot, and get on with your life. You can't really do anything more than that.

Annemos

Good evening Officechick. 

The other posters will see me replying to you and they will likely think....oh no, here she is again! Another long post and a moan!


But I am going to reply to you as another homeowner who has been subjected to the most awful service over more than 3 years. 

So I want you to know that at least someone really feels your pain. 


There are Google reviews which I do not use. I have submitted reviews on Trustpilot, but that is very ethereal. The companies can ask for lots of invited reviews every time they do a small mini-step for a policy renewal or within a claim or if they are doing a low cost claim and decide to do that one really well....etc etc.

So our 1 star reviews will get crowded out and go lower and lower down the list and eventually they will not be viewed at all. I think this might be the case with the recent storm related claims, where they perhaps decided to just clear a lot of those claims, if they were under a de minimis amount..... then ask the homeowner for a review and get a 5 star review for the handling! 


Maybe you have the same feeling as me. It is difficult to work out if what is being done to you is Deliberate?  Or if it is sheer Incompetence? Or if it is due to issues such as companies being bought out with no thought of handover issues, rotation and departure of staff, untrained staff, volume of work, chains of delegated authority companies on the claim where the responsibility gets diluted and so on and so on.....  (in my opinion all this was going on well before Covid became an excuse.) 

Whatever it is..... the result on us the claimant is the same! Sheer frustration. 


And..... isn't it ironic that all these companies will be fighting you down to the last 20 pounds from their side, but we are seemingly expected as homeowners to just walk away from what we are rightfully owed. (Especially as most of us are not made of money and paid for a policy in good faith!)

(We may reach that stage, however, due to the sheer grinding effort and the effect on our health!.....Deliberate?)  


If you are waiting for some money back and it is definitely due in your opinion. I suppose you might try putting it on the Claims Handler's and the Insurance Company's Trustpilot site and then just keep doing it. (I have just seen somebody doing that!) And also telephone and mail all the people who have been dealing with you, in the hope they might think, let's just get rid of it!

Ombudsman will not be able to address the actual service issues, unless it has substantially added to the length and stress of the claim or caused repairs to be substandard. 

The Insurance Industry can be like a most "Unreliable Boyfriend". (cf Mark Carney).... whoops these days I had better add "Or Girlfriend"! 


I don't think I have helped you much, but you have had a very large dose of sympathy from me. And maybe I made you smile a bit? 

Good luck