The Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) received more than 1,000 complaints about the product last year

The Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) is concerned by the rise in the number of complaints about card protection policies.

The FOS received 1,118 complaints about the product in the 12 months to 31 March 2014, with card protection policies rising into the top 10 most complained about general insurance products for the first time (see chart, below).

The FOS said this was largely down to customers saying they would not have bought the product had they known they already had legal protection in place.

“During the year we received over a thousand complaints about card protection policies – an area where we hadn’t had significant involvement before,” the FOS said. “Many of the consumers who complained to us about card protection said they wouldn’t have taken out a policy to protect their cards against fraud if they’d been told about the automatic legal protection they already had in relation to their cards.”

The announcement follows the high-profile mis-selling of the policies by CPP, which saw the insurer agree a £1.3bn compensation package with customers in January 2014.