FOS receives 56,025 PPI complaints in three months
Share
The Financial Ombudsman Service received 56,025 complaints relating to the mis-selling of payment protection insurance between April and June 2011.
Some 55% of the complaints were upheld in favour of the consumer.
’House mortgages’ were the fourth most complained about product, with 2.044 complaints made in the three months, with 36% resolved in favour of the consumer.
The last comparable figures published by FOS show there were 1,829 complaints about house mortgages between October and December 2010 and 24,995 complaints relating to PPI.
In total FOS received 7,060 complaints relating to house complaints in the financial year 2010/2011.
Mortgage endowments were the ninth most complained about product with 603 complaints made in the three months and 26% being upheld in favour of the consumer.
Tony Boorman, principal ombudsman and decisions director at FOS, says the first three months of the financial year were the busiest ever quarter for FOS.
He says: “During the quarter we were receiving on average over 900 PPI cases each working day.”
During this period the High Court made its decision on the PPI judicial review.
Boorman, says: “During the period of that judicial review, our ability to progress cases against many banks and other financial businesses was seriously hampered, meaning that fewer cases than we had planned were resolved.
“That had an impact on the ‘uphold rate’, as inevitably it was the cases that we thought should be upheld that proved most difficult to finalise.”
But he has warns: “The real challenge – and continuing uncertainty – will not appear until the second half of the financial year. By then, banks and others will be dealing with cases that they received after the judicial review, where there is no dispute that they should be following the ombudsman’s approach and the FSA’s complaints-handling guidance.
“Banks and others are already reporting record numbers of new complaints and it will be some time before we see the impact of those on our figures. So it’s difficult to tell whether we will be seeing still higher numbers yet – or whether the figures will now start to decline.”
If you enjoyed this article, sign up here to receive daily email updates from Mortgage Strategy and Follow @mortgagestrat
Readers' comments (10)
Anonymous | 2 Aug 2011 11:59 am
i suspect 99% of these 'complaints' were driven by claims firms
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
Tom Cleary | 2 Aug 2011 2:13 pm
I would like to know what percentage of the 56k even took out any form of PPI? Of all the PPI complaints we have had, guess how many actually took PPI out? ZERO! Not one single complainant actually took out PPI through us. It is an incredible waste of time, resources and money. Small firms have to pay £500 to defend each spurious claim. It is a complete outrage! The MOJ must do more to prevent these firms from operating.
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
Liz | 2 Aug 2011 2:19 pm
Tom, I certainly sympathise with you, I've had two such 'claims' this week alone. Plus two more that do have PPI (monthly premium, stand alone contract) where the Ambulance Chasers didn't even bother to fill in their own tick box form stating why they were complaining. And then there's the one where they can't get the clients name right.... I could go on but I know I get boring... And FOS haven't upheld a single one of our PPI complaints, but charged us £500 for the priveledge of telling the clients to sod off. Very maddening.
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
Anonymous | 2 Aug 2011 2:47 pm
How about FOS levying the costs, in the event unsuccessful claim, direct to the claim company/claimant instead of the poor old firm who did right by the compensation seeking charlatans in the first place, as confirmed by the fact that their spurious claim was not upheld. There is something seriously wrong with what is being allowed to happen currently and I'll bet these vultures already have their sights on the next financial carcass to fight and chew over.
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
dave | 2 Aug 2011 3:21 pm
Someone's not been TCFing very well have they?
I understand about claims firms simply flooding the FOS with speculative referrals, but I would guess that most of these complaints are against the big banks who simply decline cases to see if the client is determined or not.
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
Peter Turner | 3 Aug 2011 8:40 am
If a complaint comes in about a non-existent life policy to one of my client IFAs I have taken to writing direct to the complainant telling them that if their ambulance chaser takes the matter to FOS they can expect the IFA to sue them personally for all costs incurred.
That may not seem very TCF but for the purposes of the complaint they are NOT a customer as the policy does not exist.
Since the complaint amounts to an offence under the Fraud Act and the FSA has a statutory duty to reduce financial crime it is not really in a position to object to this.
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
Anonymous | 3 Aug 2011 8:52 am
We did very little insurance business as most of our mortgages BTL so not had a claim but I take it that the Ombudsman charges £500 per case? Surely there can't be a charge if there is no case to answer?
This just shows once again that all these people that we allow to run our lives have no common sense at all, FSA, Government, various ombudsman bodies, Newspaper proprietors, Sports administrators the list goes on and on, either they get these positions by illegitimate means or they just switch off their brains when they get onto the gravy train.
Sadly what helps them is the fact that those of us in the majority of "little people" end up fighting each other rather than the real enemy. Yes there have been a lot of poor claims but 55% were upheld so don't blame the claimants or even the Co.s that take up their cases, the real problem lies further up the ladder at the top and what we need is for all of us at the bottom to all join and shake it so hard that the lot of them come crashing down
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
D | 3 Aug 2011 11:46 am
Anon 11:59am I suggest 98% of these claims were driven by banks selling a worthless insurance to people that could never claim such as the SE and public sector workers and then claiming their 78% commission
Tom / Liz I would suspect a tiny minority had no ppi as the sellers complaints proceedures have to be used first. Your statement is also based on myth and not fact as the majority of claims are withheld. I wonder how many of your clients were robbed by the high street banks and your post has just supported them doing that.
Anon 2:47 unfortunately the banks sold a different type of insurance to good honest brokers who got paid a few pound commission for the correct advice whilst the banks were raking in their 78% comm on policies that would never have paid out. Unlike your suggestion the fact is that the majority of complaints are upheld.
Dave spot on they tried to defend the indefensible dragging others in.
People should see the difference between accident claims companies / credit claims companies ( ambulance chasers ) and miss sold ppi. PPI was sold to thousands that could never make a claim and others were told if they did not have the insurance they could not have the loan. Lots of the fines issued for miss selling were after sales calls were listened to. Get real guys you will all have a large number of your clients that have been sold something irrelevant and inappropriate re ppi. The way to have got rid of the claims companies was to do it yourselves where your clients had been ripped off.
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
colin | 4 Aug 2011 9:12 am
whilst there are some people that will genuinely have been mis sold the PPI, the ambulance chasers need bringing to task over the accuracy of the claims they submit. I ve just had a £500 bill for FOS taking a look into a case where the policy the clients had was a life policy for their mortgage!!!!! and NOT PPI as claimed by the claims firm.....needless to say it was rejected but still cost me £500........i should be able to sue the claims company/clients for my money back!!!!!!!!
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
Luke Atkinson | 5 Aug 2011 9:49 am
A ruling should be made whereby any claim firm that has a claim declined should be charged the £500 and not the successful defendant, lobby your professional bodies and request they exert pressure on the powers that be. This is where the AMI, AIFA etc should be earning their fees.
Bank bashing is a bit hypocrytical in these circumstances. Yes the banks ingrained the mis-selling of PPI in their sales process but what about single premium ASU? How many mortgage advisers sat back and earned big bucks off the back of this horrific product. There must be some acceptance of responsibility from this side of the industry.
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment