Insurance brokers warn of policy payout battles
Insurance firms are increasingly refusing to spend money to policyholders for motor, household and health claims, brokers have claimed.
The British Insurance Brokers’ Association (Biba) said 90% of members it questioned believed insurers had become more strict on paying claims, largely because of economic downturn and the climate and fraud.
Almost two-thirds of brokers said they’ve got needed to fight harder to have claims paid, and nearly three-quarters have successfully appealed against your claim rejection by an insurance provider during the past year.
The assertion is copied by findings through the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS), which tackles claim disputes which is not resolved via the insurer as well as its customer.
In yesteryear year the ombudsman has witnessed a 12% increase in complaints about insurers, the vast majority of which have been about disagreements over claims.
“We have discovered that insurance disputes are harder fought upon sides,” a spokesman for any FOS said. “One way insurance agencies are controlling costs is actually fighting insurance claims harder.”
In the financial year to March 2012, the FOS saw a 26% rise in complaints with regards to motor insurance within the previous year, a 31% increase in buildings insurance complaints, a 23% development of disputes about contents insurance, in addition to a 55% increasing amount of complaints involving critical illness insurance.
In its report the ombudsman said: “It is disappointing when insurers go on to pursue cases on the final stage C requesting final decisions from an ombudsman C in spots where our approach is widely known and clearly arranged.”
In the case of motor claims it said: “Insurers can nevertheless be too quick to assume thefts are not genuine.
“We in addition had concerns in some instances around the manner in which the insurer has investigated issues around ‘non-disclosure’ by way of the consumer. It has included disputes where the insurer we hadn’t properly considered your house questions they asked the consumer C or the questions on analysis site C were sufficiently clear.”
Biba cited the situation of insurer that wrongly rejected the claim of any soldiers family posted overseas. While abroad the household put their belongings into storage; if they returned the belongings ended up being damaged, so they really took steps to get on the insurance cover within the storage company.
“The claim was unsuccessful because of policy wording interpretation in the insurers, additionally, the family was offered 4,000 C although their belongings were worth now more,” a Biba spokesman said. “An agent became involved and helped the household navigate the protection wording and evidence the claim was valid, which results in it being settled for 12,000.”
The Association of British Insurers stated it rejected Biba’s research claims. Nick Starling, director of general insurance, said: “We will not accept any suggestion that it is receiving targeted a hardship on genuine claimants to be paid and we have experienced no evidence pointing to the.
“The priority of insurers will be to pay all genuine claims just as easily and efficiently as you possibly can.”
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