Direct Line and AXA top customer complaints list

Direct Line Group subsidiary UK Insurance (UKI) received the most general insurance complaints in the second half of 2011, according to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS).

The insurer received 1,611 new complaints in total in the second half, of which 1,554 were general insurance complaints and 57 related to payment protection insurance (PPI). However, this is down 7.7% on the 1,736 total complaints received in the first half of 2011 by UKI, Direct Line, Churchill and NIG combined.

UKI is now the main underwriting entity of the Direct Line Group (formerly RBS Insurance) after a combination of the group’s other underwriting entities, Direct Line, Churchill and NIG, into UKI at the end of last year.

The Direct Line Group is the UK’s largest personal lines insurer.

“Resolving customer complaints is one of our key business priorities,” said RBS Insurance director of sales, service and partnerships Darrell Evans in a statement. “We continue to work closely with the FSA and FOS to deal with complaints and have already made many improvements to benefit customers.”

Second on the list was AXA. AXA UK Insurance received 698 general insurance complaints, while Inter Partner Assistance, the underwriting arm of breakdown services company AXA Assistance, received 601 complaints, resulting in a total of 1,299.

Aviva received 837 complaints, of which 563 were for general insurance, 265 for payment protection insurance (PPI) and 9 for life and pensions decumulation. RSA received 552 new complaints in total, of which 544 were for general insurance and 8 for PPI.

The FOS is expecting a record 165,000 complaints about PPI in 2012/13.

This is despite a sharp drop in PPI complaints received in the second half of 2011 compared with the first half. The FOS received 46,700 PPI complaints in the second half of 2011, down 53% on the 98,632 complaints it received in the first half of the year.

The FOS said the reduction reflects the impact of the FSA’s special arrangements allowing banks more time to deal with their backlogs of cases following their unsuccessful legal challenge on PPI complaint handling.