Many claims experiences ‘breaching’ consumers’ trust in industry – Holmes

Many claims experiences are resulting in insurance firms “breaching that trust” consumers have in them, according to Andy Holmes, chief executive at CFC.

Speaking at the CFC Summit 2024 in September, Holmes said the industry suffered from a “negative reputation” due to the “typical customer experience”.

And he explained that it was at the point of a claim that the ”industry has the chance to build its reputation, but too often it breaks it”.

Holmes added: “Insurance is built on trust, but unfortunately, many claims experiences end up breaching that trust.”

He continued: ”[There] is a long proposal form at the start of the journey, which is tedious in the extreme.

“Then, there is the waiting time for a quote. Ideally, it [should] take hours or days, but too often it takes weeks.”

Complaint figures

Holmes’ comments came after the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) said it was expecting to receive nearly 50,000 insurance complaints during the 24/25 financial year.

The regulator also revealed that buildings insurance was the second most complained about product by consumers during Q1 of its financial year.

It said the top three reasons for complaints included claim decline (41%), claim delay (23%) and claim value (8%).

Holmes said: “We can wire money in seconds, so why does it take weeks or months to move claims payments?

“This substandard customer experience often gives our industry a reputation of being scammers who are happy to take the customer’s premium, but are nowhere to be seen when it comes to the claim time.

“Of course, there are many claims experiences that are better than this, but these good experiences rarely make the headlines.”