Making complaints about your business insurance broker
We have seen in the press recently details about complaints relating to payment protection insurance. We understand why these complaints have started, it was always fairly obvious that at some point the bubble would burst. Policies were sold and anyone that tried to claim would have such a hard job to try and get their claim paid. I remember reading in one of the Sunday papers about someone that had a policy and the insurers insisted in them applying for over 100 jobs per month, and proving this, before they would consider the claim.
The bit that frustrates us, is that even businessinsure, who have never sold one of these policies as we are a pure business insurance broker, have to pay towards the cost of these complaints. That however, is an aside, there is nothing that we can do about it and have to just pay the costs to the FSA.
But what happens if you are making a complaint about your business or commercial insurance? We have had one or two customers complain over the years. The first that tends to happen is that they will say, I am going to speak to the Ombudsman. Now, the complaints have not been about us, but the insurers behind the policies. The correct process though, before going to the Ombudsman, is to raise your complaint with either the broker and/or the insurers of the initial policy. What happens is that you have to exhaust the internal complaints process, before you get to the stage of requesting that the Ombudsman makes a decision. This applies to all types of insurance, whether domestic or business, as long as your turnover is below a certain threshold.
In reality, most complaints are dealt with there and then by the brokers and insurers, usually through what is called an ex-gratia claim process. This is where an insurer agrees to pay a claim, that is not covered, because of the overall value of their relationship with the insurance broker in question.
If you have any cause for complaint, speak to your broker in the first instance.
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