Financial Ombudsman Experience (Investigator and Ombudsman decisions)

Okell

Teddg said:

Okell said:

In answer to your question - yes, the ombudsman can reverse a decision made by one of their investigators.

Whether they will in your case, nobody here can say as we don't know the facts of your complaint.

However, my understanding is that while the ombudsman's decision is final and binding on the insurance company, it is not binding on you.

If you think the ombudsman's complaint is wrong in law, I think it is still open to you to sue the insurance company.

(FWIW, my understanding - which might be mistaken - is that the FSO tends to reach decisions which it believes are "fair" to all the parties, but may not be strictly legally correct)

Hi, thanks. I wasn’t so much asking if they can reverse the decision, I’m aware they can, it was more just understanding what were peoples own experiences were in this scenario just for my own curiosity...

But what the experience of others has been is irrelevant to your complaint.

The only thing that is - or should be - relevant to your complaint, is the merit of the complaint.

sheramber

All explained in the FOS website

https://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/consumers/expect

When you bring your complaint to us – and we’ve checked it’s something we can help with – you’ll be given a case handler to look into your complaint.

Your case handler will:

• ask the business for their side of the story
• see whether the financial business has made a new or updated offer to resolve the complaint before we carry out a full investigation
• weigh up the facts of what’s happened, fairly and impartially
• tell you and the business what we think via an initial assessment

If we think there’s just been a misunderstanding – or you haven’t lost out financially – we’ll explain why. But if we decide you’ve been treated unfairly, we’ll let the business know what we think it should do to put things right. We’re able to resolve most complaints this way. But if you, or the business, don't agree with the initial assessment, either party can request a decision from an ombudsman.