Do you feel that your subsidence claim did not result in a “good outcome” for you? We have an opportunity to change things for the better in the insurance industry in the 2026 summer – get your voice heard by the industry – let us have your story.
Following the Which? super-complaint to the FCA last December, FCA intend (during the summer of 2026) to widen their scope of their investigations into poor claims handling (in particular through outsourced services like delegated authority loss adjusters and such). We intend to assist them in this by providing examples of specific areas where we believe the new Consumer Duty (to achieve “good outcomes” for consumers, without causing them “harm”) has not been met.
2023 Consumer Duty
The Consumer Duty was introduced into the financial retail sector in 2023 to try and improve the conduct of the likes of banks and insurers. It aims to level the playing field somewhat by setting higher standards of consumer protection than have existed up to now. Firms must now “act to deliver good outcomes for retail customers” and “avoid causing foreseeable harm”. Some examples we commonly see of non-compliance might be;
• the unfair withdrawal of subsidence cover during or soon after an accepted claim
• offering cash settlements on complex cases where the full cost of repairs is uncertain, or
• Inadequate mitigation – proceeding to repairs (or offering cash in lieu) before the property has fully stabilised
• unfairly repudiating claims through misdiagnosing the cause
• voiding the cover unfairly
• excessive delay in handling or concluding matters
• inadequate site investigations / monitoring undertaken
The Regulator uses consumer feedback and other market intelligence to monitor insurers compliance with the new Duty, and can intervene and ultimately take enforcement action with specific firms. They won’t act in the same way the Financial Ombudsman does however – hearing evidence from both sides on specific individual cases and making a ruling. They rarely intervene in specific cases – usually their focus is on the broader perspective.
How firms like B&SC can help
We are looking to compile a list of cases where we think the Consumer Duty has not been met (breaches must be post July 2023) and invite you to contribute by sending us a succinct resumé of your experience which you are unhappy about – giving the names of the firms in question and attaching proof (copy repudiation letter etc.). We will review and summarise the list further to make it easier for the FCA to digest. You can remain anonymous if you wish, but it would be more credible if we could offer the FCA some contact details for verification if they wish to. Such details would of course not be made public and remain confidential to the FCA.
Our hope is that with enough evidence of poor practises, the FCA will be able to get things changed for the better going forward. We’re not looking to raise official complaints about specific cases – just to give the Regulator some of the information that it is currently looking for – as it relates to our small sector of the industry.
Together perhaps we can help the FCA try to get things improved all round, so consumers are better served and the industry’s reputation is improved. Please do get in touch if you have a story you’d like us to draw the FCAs attention to. Either post here or send us your (summarised and succinct please) story to;
subsidence@bandsc.co.uk.
Alternatively, you can contact the FCA directly yourself if you prefer to. See the following link;
Some links to documents referred to on this post are below;