Problem areas in travel and mobile phone insurance

The Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) has said that it now gets a “significant number” of complaints about insurance bundled in with packaged bank accounts.

The watchdog said the main complaint areas were about mobile phone insurance and travel insurance. The problems tend to happen when customers try to claim, then find that their policy gave them limited cover.

In a statement, the FOS said: “We’re currently receiving about 30 complaints a week about packaged accounts - and our consumer helpline receives many more enquiries that never go on to be formally investigated.

“We have always advised it makes sense to have travel insurance in place before you travel – but cheapest isn’t always best. A cheaper policy is more likely to be less comprehensive and may include more restrictive exclusions. It is important that before you take out any policy, you read the small print, and this is just as true for policies that are provided as a benefit of a ‘premium’ account as it is for any standalone policy.”