Who is responsible for the claims culture? Speakers and delegates at the Insurance Times claims debate last week flagged up a number of suspects but concluded that a range of factors were at play.
Meanwhile, many claims handling colleagues stayed away, too busy dealing with the raging floods still affecting large areas of the country.
The rains slowed at the weekend and in their place came first a trickle and then a stream of consumer complaints about the way insurers handled flood claims. The weekend papers were deluged.
The claims debate focused on personal injury claims, little or nothing to do with the flood claims, perhaps. But the public does not distinguish between different liabilities. Most people do not even distinguish between general and life insurance, linking the apparent greediness of life insurers trying to hang on to orphan funds or change payout rules to the poor service flood victims receive.
The floods were an opportunity. People who had no idea who their insurer was would have dug out their policies and called the claims line. That was an opportunity for the insurer to deliver such a service that each claimant remembered the name of their insurer and was so impressed they vowed never to change insurer again.
Instead, many people will be trying desperately to change insurer at renewal, dissatisfied with the way their claim was handled.
And that dissatisfaction will return to haunt the industry as a whole. People will take their revenge with bumped up claims in the future and by taking personal injury claims when, perhaps, they may have settled for a few days discomfort.
The insurance industry has once again made itself a target and, once again, contributed to the rapidly expanding claims culture.
