See the full break down of where individual insurers and intermediaries ranked in the number of complaints they received, and the numbers upheld

Carrot was the intermediary to get the greatest proportion of complaints for insurance policies sold in the second half of 2018, according to FCA data.

Intermediation - worst performers per 1,000 policies soldUpheldAdjusted 
Carrot  47.83 41.60% 19.90
Animal Friends Insurance 20.65 24.40% 5.04
Hastings 19.39 69.30% 13.44
Homeserve 18.57 38.90% 7.22
IGO4 17.17 38.90% 6.68
Brightside 15.21 87.50% 13.31
Ambant 12.82 12.10% 1.55
Endsleigh Insurance 11.63 49.60% 5.77
Insurance Factory (Markerstudy) 9.67 34.40% 3.33
Carole Nash 9.58 50.50% 4.84

The telematics broker’s customers were among those affected by unrated Danish insurer Alpha going bust in May last year, but managing director of Carrot, Ed Rochfort, said it was the company’s strict approach to poor driving that led to the high number of complaints.

Figures revealed Carrot had 47.83 complaints per 1,000 policies sold, more than twice the number of the second worst performer, Animal Friends Insurance, which had 20.65 complaints per 1,000 policies sold.

The average number of complaints for an individual firm was 10.03 per 1,000 per policies sold.

“The FCA data is disappointing, and we continue to work hard to reduce the incidence of complaints,” Rochfort said. “Our robust intervention process also leads to higher cancellations than the industry norm. Intervention generates complaints because people don’t agree that they are driving poorly, but our data shows that it has a positive outcome because intervention significantly reduces accident frequency and hence the number of young people injured in accidents.

“The data also shows that a higher than average number of complaints against us are not upheld. Complaint statistics are an important yardstick but to get the whole picture it’s important to differentiate between insurance providers with different customer profiles.” 

While Carrot’s upheld rate was below the individual firm 50.60% average at 41.60%, this adjustment still placed it as having the most complaints per policies sold. It was ahead of the next worst performers – Hastings (13.44 upheld complaints per 1,000 policies sold) and Brightside (13.31 upheld complaints per 1,000 policies sold).

Both Hastings and Brightside told Insurance Times that they are both committed to improving its service to the customer to reduce the number of complaints.

A Hastings spokesperson said it makes the complaint process easily accessible for customers and has already seen a reduction in the number of complaints it has received for the first part of 2019.

“We take a great deal of care to ensure that all complaints are accurately captured and that our customers get answers and fair outcomes to the issues and complaints they raise with us,” the spokesperson added.

“We provide significant training to all our customer-facing colleagues and have invested in improving our response times, to ensure that customers wait the least amount of time to receive a fair outcome.

“We continue to challenge ourselves to understand how to improve our customer journey. This improvement activity spans people capability, processes and systems.”

Priority

Brightside said its position in the complaints table was disappointing, and that fixing this was a priority for the firm. The firm said it is confident recent appointments will improve its customer service.

A Brightside spokesperson added: “We have already implemented new training modules for our call agents, increased staff numbers, with a significant number of new team members joining in recent months, and we’ve upgraded our telephony.

“Richard Beaven’s recent appointment as Group COO will ensure that we improve our focus on getting it right first time for our customers.”

At the other end of the scale, Compare the Market was the strongest performer among the 24 intermediaries listed in the FCA complaints data for policies sold.

Intermediation - best performers per 1,000 policies soldUpheldAdjusted 
Compare the Market 0.14 15.60% 0.02
Society of Lloyd’s 0.48 51.60% 0.25
UK General Insurance 0.55 68.90% 0.38
Collinson Insurance 0.85 55.40% 0.47
Xbridge Ltd (Simply Business) 1.73 54.10% 0.94
Gallagher 2.72 55.30% 1.50
AA 4.4 54.20% 2.38
Eldon Insurance 4.89 35.10% 1.72
Swinton 6.24 54.60% 3.41
BISL (BGL Group) 6.5 46.60% 3.03

It had only 0.14 complaints per 1,000 policies sold, and of these only 15.60% were upheld – the second lowest upheld rate, with only Ambant recording a lower upheld rate at 12.10%.

Companies featured in the data were those individual firms that reported 500 or more complaints in a six month period, or 1,000 or more in a 12 month period.

Insurers

Aviva was the insurer which stepped in to provide replacement cover for many Carrot customers, and insurance provision complaints data for policies in force revealed it was one of the worst performers.

It received 7.3 complaints per 1,000 policies in force, above the firm average of 3.56. It also had a high percentage of these complaints upheld (73.50%).

An Aviva spokesperson said a key factor in the number of complaints and upheld rate was the number of historic PPI complaints where Aviva was the underwriter. The FCA last year launched a marketing campaign promoting the PPI complaint deadline.

But Aviva said it takes customer complaints very seriously and that it is committed to excellent customer service. The spokesperson added: “Where we fail to meet customers’ expectations our first priority is to resolve the matter as quickly as possible and to act on the feedback we receive.

“We have a continued focus on reducing complaint volumes by improving systems, continued training and working closely with third-parties.”

British Gas Insurance was the worst performer among providers of insurance with 13.69 complaints per 1,000 policies in force, followed by Telefonica Insurance with 13.2.

British Gas also had the highest upheld rate of all providers and sellers of insurance, with 95.10% of complaints upheld. Telefonica had 61.70% upheld.

Total redress paid out in insurance and pure protection excluding PPI

2017 H2 - £45,601,239 - average per upheld complaint - £98

2018 H1 - £51,708,142 - average per upheld complaint - £100

2018 H2 - £46,669,946 - average per upheld complaint - £86

Outside of these firms though, iGO4 had the third highest number of complaints per 1,000 in force, at 11.13.

It was also the fifth worst among intermediaries for the number of policies sold with 17.17 per 1,000 policies.

Matt Munro, chief executive of iGO4 explained that as a provider of telematics insurance products, it affects the make-up of its customer base. But he said that for the vast majority of customers, telematics works well, and that 60% of its own WiseDriving product receive discounts through the policy year for their good driving.

Provision - worst performers per 1,000 policies in forceUpheldAdjusted
British Gas Services Limited 13.69 95.10% 13.02
Telefonica Insurance 13.2 61.70% 8.14
IGO4 11.13 38.90% 4.33
CIS General Insurance (Co-op) 8.88 54.60% 4.85
Avantia Insurance 7.41 53.20% 3.94
Aviva 7.3 73.50% 5.37
Aioi Nissay Dowa Europe 7.71 42.30% 3.26
EUI Limited (Admiral) 7.75 43.70% 3.39
Devitt Insurance 6.4 24.70% 1.58
First Central 6.31 66.30% 4.18

Munro said: “For drivers with poor driving styles, the nature of the telematics model enables us to intervene, which can, in extreme cases, lead to cancellations and, in turn, increase the number of complaints on our telematics versus our standard motor offering. However this also enables us to continue to provide great rates to good drivers and strong underwriting results for our insurers.”

His comments correspond with those of Carrot boss Rochfort, and also with the higher number of motor and transport general insurance complaints in total. These rose 13% for the period compared to 2018 H1, and also made up 55.89% of all general insurance complaints. 

“We continue to invest in our customer journey to provide clarity on the product throughout the journey and to use our data for better upfront selection of customers that are more suited to telematics,” Munro added.

“We also monitor the root causes of complaints and this hard work is already coming through in our results this year, which show a two thirds decline in the number of insurance complaints (4.5 per 1000 policies in Q1 2019).”

Among the major UK general insurers, Co-op Insurance, currently in the process of receiving regulatory permissions for Markerstudy to acquire it, received the highest number of complaints.

It received 8.88 complaints per 1,000 policies in force, with an upheld rate of 54.60%.

Gary Hueting, chief operations officer for Co-op Insurance, said he supported the FCA’s drive to bring transparency to the industry’s handling of complaints, but that it is still difficult to compare insurers due to variation in interpretation of complaints data across the industry.

FCA general insurance complaints stats

- 507,547 general insurance complaints in 2018 H2, up from 476,447 in 2018 H1 (a 6.1% increase)

- Motor and transport insurance complaints rose 13% from 252,044 (2018 H1) to 283,664 (2018 H2)

- Other general insurance complaints remained level with 224,403 in 2018 H1 and 223,883 in 2018 H2

- 53% of all complaints closed within three days for 2018 H2

- Total percent of complaints upheld: 62% for 2018 H1 and 60% for 2018 H2

Nevertheless, he said the firm had worked hard to learn from complaints it receives, and had subsequently reduced the number of complaints in each of the last two six monthly returns.

“We closely monitor customer satisfaction across all aspects of our service and use these scores along with any customer complaints, to prioritise our service improvement programme,” Hueting added.

He highlighted a 4.5 improvement in its Net Promoter Score from 2017 to 2018, and moving up 119 places in KPMG’s 2018 UK Customer Experience Excellence Analysis as evidence of increased customer satisfaction.

“Furthermore, figures from the independent financial services ombudsman show that for complaints referred to them, our uphold rate in favour of the customer is significantly better than the industry average,” he added.

Top performer

Provision - best performers per 1,000 policies in forceUpheldAdjusted
AIG UK 0.22 39.20% 0.09
Pinnacle Insurance 0.24 26.50% 0.06
DAS 0.37 45.50% 0.17
AmTrust Europe 0.48 43.00% 0.21
London General Insurance 0.55 44.90% 0.25
Royal London 0.75 48.60% 0.36
Tesco Underwriting  1 49.50% 0.50
Towergate Underwriting 1.1 53.50% 0.59
Highway Insurance (LV) 1.1 37.90% 0.42
XL Catlin 1.14 42.00% 0.48

Previous Insurance Times analysis of 2018 H1 financial ombudsmen complaints data recognised AIG Europe as the best performer, with only 6% of complaints upheld by the service.

And again AIG Europe was a strong performer for the FCA’s complaints data for 2018 Q2.

Recorded as AIG UK after the firm’s restructure, the company had only 0.22 complaints per 1,000 in force – the lowest proportion of complaints for any of the 50 firms listed as providers of insurance.

It’s upheld rate of 39.20% is also better than average, although the upheld rate of Pinnacle Insurance (26.50%) would place it above AIG UK on an upheld adjusted measure.

Paul Crutchlow, head of the customer relations team at AIG UK, explained how the company maintains its consistently strong performance on complaints.

“Underpinning the low levels of customer complaints received is the customer-centric culture operating throughout AIG UK, where all areas of our business are focused upon positive customer outcomes – not just the front line delivery of services (claims handling for example), but deep within all operations from governance functions through to product development and delivery,” he said.

“Equally important as the prevention of complaints through a positive customer journey, is the intelligent use of complaint data when customers do not feel their journey with us has been as expected.

“Effective root-cause analysis is critical to understanding where issues exist, their impact on our customers and crucially, how this is used in order to effect positive change contributing to low complaint volumes.”

How did your firm do? Full tables ranked worst to best 

 

Firm (Provision) - insurance complaints per 1,000 policies in force
British Gas Services Limited 13.69
Telefonica Insurance 13.2
IGO4 11.13
CIS General Insurance (Co-op) 8.88
Avantia Insurance 7.41
Aviva 7.3
Aioi Nissay Dowa Europe 7.71
EUI Limited (Admiral) 7.75
Devitt Insurance 6.4
First Central 6.31
BUPA Insurance Services 6.26
RSA 6.13
Legal & General 4.24
Gresham Insurance (Aviva) 4.19
One Call 3.99
UK Insurance Limited (Direct Line) 3.7
Carole Nash 3.53
CFC Underwriting 3.46 (1 April 2018-30 September 2018)
Animal Friends Insurance 3.43
Lloyds Bank General Insurance 2.76
Zurich 2.56
Adrian Flux 2.54 (1 March 2018-31 August 2018)
Car Care Plan (AmTrust) 2.53
NFU Mutual 2.52
Ageas Retail 2.47
Allianz 2.46
Assurant General Insurance 2.36
Domestic & General Insurance  2.28 (1 April 2018-30 September 2018
Acromas Insurance 1.99
Saga 1.94 (1 February 2018-31 July 2018)
AXA 1.82
LV 1.82
Covea Insurance 1.75
Call Assist 1.74 (1 May 2018-31 October 2018)
Sabre 1.67
Markerstudy 1.66
esure 1.51
Hiscox 1.48
Rock Insurance  1.25 (2 January 2018-1 July 2018)
RAC 1.15
XL Catlin 1.14
Highway Insurance (LV) 1.1
Towergate Underwriting 1.1
Tesco Underwriting 1
Royal London 0.75
London General Insurance 0.55
AmTrust Europe 0.48
DAS 0.37
Pinnacle Insurance 0.24
AIG UK 0.22 (1 June 2018-30 November 2018)
   
Average 3.56
Firm (intermediation) - insurance complaints per 1,000 policies sold
Carrot  47.83
Animal Friends Insurance 20.65
Hastings 19.39
Homeserve 18.57 (1 April 2018-30September 2018)
IGO4 17.17
Brightside 15.21
Ambant 12.82
Endsleigh Insurance 11.63
Insurance Factory (Markerstudy) 9.67
Carole Nash 9.58
MCE Insurance 8.88 (1 June 2018-30 November 2018)
One Call 7.16
Domestic & General 6.81 (1 April 2018-30 September 2018)
Autonet 6.76
BISL (BGL Group) 6.5
Swinton 6.24
Eldon Insurance 4.89
AA 4.4 (1 February 2018-31 July 2018)
Gallagher 2.72
Xbridge Ltd (Simply Business) 1.73
Collinson Insurance 0.85 (1 May 2018-31 October 2018)
UK General Insurance 0.55 (1 April 2018-30 September 2018)
Society of Lloyd’s 0.48
Compare the Market 0.14
   
Average 10.03
FirmUpheld
British Gas Services Limited 95.10%
Brightside 87.50%
Zurich 81%
Legal & General 76.40%
CFC Underwriting 73.60%
Aviva 73.50%
Domestic & General 69.50%
Hastings 69.30%
UK Insurance Limited (Direct Line) 68.90%
AXA 68.00%
Lloyds Bank General Insurance 66.80%
First Central 66.30%
RSA 65.80%
NFU Mutual 64.80%
Allianz 62.90%
Car Care (AmTrust) 62.40%
Telefonica Insurance 61.70%
LV 61.60%
Covea Insurance 59.40%
Acromas Insurance 58.70%
BUPA Insurance 58.20%
Gresham Insurance (Aviva) 57.80%
Markerstudy 56.30%
Collinson Insurance 55.40%
Gallagher  55.30%
CIS General Insurance (Co-Op) 54.60%
Swinton 54.60%
esure 54.40%
AA 54.20%
Xbridge Ltd (Simply Business) 54.10%
Towergate Underwriting 53.50%
Assurant General Insurance 53.20%
Avantia Insurance 53.20%
Society of Lloyd’s 51.60%
Carole Nash 50.50%
UK General Insurance 49.70%
Endsleigh Insurance 49.60%
Tesco Underwriting 49.50%
Hiscox 48.90%
Royal London 48.60%
BISL (BGL Group) 46.60%
RAC 46.10%
DAS 45.50%
Sabre 45.30%
London General Insurance 44.90%
EUI Limited (Admiral) 43.70%
AmTrust 43.00%
Aioi Nissay Dowa Europe 42.30%
XL Catlin 42.00%
Carrot 41.60%
MCE Insurance  41.00%
Ageas Retail 39.30%
AIG UK 39.20%
Homeserve 38.90%
IGO4 38.90%
Highway Insurance (LV) 37.90%
Saga 35.60%
Autonet 35.10%
Eldon Insurance 35.10%
Rock Insurance 34.90%
Insurance Factory (Markerstudy) 34.40%
Adrian Flux 30.30%
Call Assist 26.50%
Pinnacle Insurance 26.50%
Devitt Insurance 24.70%
Animal Friends 24.40%
One Call 23.70%
Compare the Market 15.60%
Ambant 12.10%
   
Average (individual firm) 50.60%

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