FOS releases case studies
The latest issue of Ombudsman News from the UK Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) has given insurers some interesting food for thought, offering up several examples of cases the FOS has become involved in of late, which demonstrate the main problems that customers are having with their travel insurers.
The latest issue of Ombudsman News from the UK Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) has given insurers some interesting food for thought, offering up several examples of cases the FOS has become involved in of late, which demonstrate the main problems that customers are having with their travel insurers.
The FOS states: “The complaints we see reflect he sheer variety of trips that people make – and the experiences they have while preparing to travel or while they are away. This variety means that travel insurance is one of the most complex products that we deal with. It could also explain why the travel insurance pages in our online technical resource are some of the most popular pages on our website – because people are looking for information about so many different situations.”
The FOS has identified some recurring themes in its dealing with clients dissatisfied with their insurance, firstly saying that a ‘significant proportion’ of complaints stem from customers who bought cover online. “Often,” said the FOS, “we find that problems are caused by the details of the cover not being made clear to consumers before they took out the policy. However, in some cases, we find that consumers bought their insurance without reading through the information about the policy.” Other themes identified with complaints are some insurers applying their terms and conditions in what the FOS described as ‘an overly rigid and simplistic way’. Pre-existing medical conditions continue to cause problems for both insurers and consumers, with the FOS pointing out: “We often see complaints from consumers who hadn’t realised that their insurer expected to know not only about their own health – but about the health of their close relatives too.”
The case studies that followed the report showed the variety of problems experienced by travel insurance consumers, from a consumer who didn’t understand the difference between an annual, multi-trip policy and a long-stay policy; to a consumer who complained that the insurer rejected their claim for the holiday they cancelled after the death of a close relative; and the ever-controversial problem of ‘unattended’ property being stolen.