Motor insurance most complained about insurance product - FCA

Motor and transport insurance is the most complained about general insurance product (excluding payment protection insurance (PPI)), according to the latest data from the FCA.

The FCA complaints data for the first half of 2019 revealed that 6% of all financial services complaints related to motor or transport insurance, with the regulator receiving 248,460 complaints over the first six months of 2019.

This is 10% lower than the 277,363 motor/transport insurance complaints received over the previous six month period, but is still some way ahead of other general insurance business lines.

In fact, the total number of complaints received for all other insurance product lines combined (excluding PPI) only totalled 200,170 – 28% lower than the number of motor/transport insurance complaints.

Overall, insurance products (including PPI) accounted for 67% of all financial services complaints received by the FCA over the first half of 2019.

This is equal to 11 complaints per 1,000 in-force policies, a rise of 1.5 complaints per 1,000 policies compared to the same period a year earlier, although this will have been largely driven by a large increase in PPI complaints.

Excluding PPI, this means that the total amount of redress paid to insurance complainants has totalled more than £45m over the first six months of 2019, higher than every other product line except banking and credit cards.

This is, however, still lower than both of the two preceding six month periods, with the amount paid out by insurers falling by 4% over the first six months of 2019.