Insurance company complaints from Q2 2017 to date - January 2022

The data we are requesting has been laid out below, and we would like this data starting from Q2 2017 until the most recently available data.

1. Number of new general insurance complaints received broken down by:
   1. Business (half yearly/quarterly if possible)
   2. Product (half yearly/quarterly if possible)*
   3. Complaint type – claims/admin/sales and advice (half yearly/quarterly if possible)*
   4. Product and business (half yearly/quarterly if possible)
   5. Product and complaint type (half yearly/quarterly if possible)*
   6. Business and complaint type (half yearly/quarterly if possible)
   7. Product, business and complaint type (half yearly/quarterly if posible)

2. Upheld rate of general insurance complaints broken down by:
   1. Business (half yearly/quarterly if possible)
   2. Product (half yearly/quarterly if possible)*
   3. Complaint type – claims/admin/sales and advice (half yearly/quarterly if possible)
   4. Product and business (half yearly/quarterly if possible)
   5. Product and complaint type (half yearly/quarterly if possible)
   6. Business and complaint type (half yearly/quarterly if possible)
   7. Product, business and complaint type (half yearly/quarterly if possible)

Questions 1(b), (c), (e) and 2(b)

The requested information can be found in the tables contained in Annex B. You have requested for some ‘General Insurance’ product group complaints data. As the information we hold is not aggregated into this specific category, we have provided data on the nearest corresponding product group of ‘Insurance and Pure protection’, of which ‘General Insurance’ is a subset.

Please note that firms that reported fewer than 500 complaints in a six-month period only submit data broken down into the categories provided as shown in the top row of the table shown below (e.g., Advising, selling, and arranging), rather than the more detailed categories provided by firms who received more than 500 complaints in a six-month period. We therefore only hold comprehensive data covering all firms, broken down into the categories provided in Annex A[1].

Questions 1(a), (d), (f), (g) and 2(a), (d), (f), (g)

We hold the information you have asked for, but we are prohibited from disclosing it to you. This is because it is confidential information that the FCA has received in the course of carrying out its public function under section 348 of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (FSMA). For more information on the FSMA provision see below:

Section 44 (Prohibitions on Disclosure)

Section 44(1)(a) of FOIA states that information is absolutely exempt from disclosure if this is prohibited by law.  Section 348 of FSMA restricts the FCA from disclosing ‘confidential information’ it has received in the course of carrying out its public function.  FSMA allows exceptions to this in a few specific circumstances, but none of these apply to this request.

Confidential information here is defined as non-public and non-anonymised information involving a person’s business or other affairs, which the FCA received in the course of carrying out its public function.

The information you requested is confidential information under this provision.  If we disclosed this information, without the provider’s consent and the consent of the person the information is about, we would be in breach of section 348 of FSMA.  This would be a criminal offence.

In many requests for information under FOIA we have to judge different factors to decide whether disclosing the requested information would be in the public interest or not.  For this request, we have an ‘absolute’ exemption against supplying the information, and so we do not need to make this kind of judgement.

Please note, the complaints data relating to firms that reported 500 complaints or more within a six-month period, or 1,000 or more within a year is publicly available and can be found on our website[2].

Questions 2(c) and (e)

We do not hold this information as we do not collect data on the number of complaints upheld broken down by product.