A lower uphold rate, but on fewer decisions
In the most recent 90-day window measured in Veste's data, the Financial Ombudsman upheld 28.2% of home insurance claim disputes, against 32.9% in the preceding 90-day window. That is a fall of 4.7 percentage points. Over the same two windows, the number of published decisions fell from 659 to 557, a drop of 102 decisions, or 15.5%.
Both windows comfortably clear Veste's minimum sample threshold of 30 decisions, so this is not a case of a handful of outcomes swinging a tiny sample. But a fall of 4.7 percentage points on 557 decisions, following a period in which monthly volumes and rates have both moved around a fair amount, is not on its own proof of a shift in Ombudsman approach or in how insurers are handling claims. It needs to be read against the monthly trend and the annual figures before any firmer conclusion is drawn.
The numbers in full
Across the entire dataset that Veste holds for this category, 25,682 home insurance claim decisions have been published since 2013, with an overall uphold rate of 38.2% (8,236 upheld, 3,142 partially upheld, 14,304 not upheld). That headline figure spans more than a decade and includes periods with very different uphold rates, so it is best treated as a long-run average rather than a current benchmark.
The more useful comparison is the corpus-wide baseline: across all 401,815 Financial Ombudsman decisions in Veste's full database, covering every product type, the uphold rate is 28.8%. The current 90-day figure for home insurance claims, 28.2%, sits almost exactly on that all-product baseline, having started the prior window somewhat above it at 32.9%.
What the monthly series shows
Veste's monthly series runs for 25 months, from June 2024 to June 2026. It shows an uphold rate that has moved in a fairly wide band throughout, and has clearly trended downward in the most recent months.
In the second half of 2024, monthly uphold rates for home insurance claims sat mostly between 38.9% and 48.4%, with October 2024 the highest point at 48.4% on 248 decisions. Through 2025 the rate generally ran lower, oscillating between roughly 33.1% (February 2025) and 44.2% (April 2025), without a clear sustained direction.
The drop becomes more visible from the turn of 2026. January 2026 recorded a 31.2% uphold rate on 170 decisions, February 2026 came in at 34.1% on 255 decisions, and March 2026, the highest-volume month in the series at 326 decisions, produced a rate of 32.4%. April 2026 then fell sharply to 20.8% on 137 decisions, the lowest monthly rate anywhere in the 25-month series. May 2026 recovered slightly to 26.7% on 150 decisions, and June 2026, the most recent and likely incomplete month with 109 decisions, stood at 29.8%.
That run of low months, April to June 2026, is what is driving the 90-day window comparison. The prior 90-day window would have captured some of the higher-rate months around the turn of the year, while the current window is dominated by the lower readings from spring 2026. Volumes have also fallen across these months compared with the busier months of late 2025 and early 2026, most obviously the 326 decisions recorded in March 2026 versus the 137 and 150 decisions of April and May.
The annual picture adds context
Looking year by year gives a longer vantage point. In 2022, the uphold rate for home insurance claim disputes was 35.7% across 2,387 decisions. It then rose to 44.8% in 2023 (2,528 decisions) and 43.6% in 2024 (2,357 decisions), before falling to 39.0% in 2025 (2,395 decisions) and, so far in 2026, 30.2% across 1,147 decisions.
That sequence shows the current 90-day fall is not an isolated blip appearing out of a flat baseline. The uphold rate has been declining year-on-year since 2023, from 44.8% down through 43.6% and 39.0% to the 30.2% recorded so far in 2026. The most recent 90-day figure of 28.2% is consistent with, and slightly below, that 2026-to-date annual figure, rather than a dramatic outlier against it.
Firm mix: a fragmented picture
Veste's top-firms data for this category, covering firms that meet the minimum sample size, shows considerable spread in uphold rates over the full history held. Ageas Insurance Limited has the highest uphold rate among the larger firms at 42.7% across 1,309 decisions (474 upheld, 170 partial, 665 not upheld). Admiral Insurance (Gibraltar) Limited sits close behind at 42.6% across 565 decisions. AXA Insurance UK Plc records 37.6% across 1,576 decisions, and Liverpool Victoria Insurance Company Limited 36.0% across 680 decisions.
At the other end, Lloyds Bank General Insurance Limited has an uphold rate of 26.1% across 739 decisions, and U K Insurance Limited (recorded with a space in the business name) sits at 29.7% across 948 decisions. Aviva Insurance Limited, the largest single firm by volume in this dataset with 1,681 decisions, has an uphold rate of 30.8% (421 upheld, 194 partial, 1,066 not upheld).
It is worth noting, as Veste's methodology requires, that firms are counted by the exact business name recorded on each published decision. UK Insurance Limited (39.6% uphold rate, 1,241 decisions) and U K Insurance Limited (29.7%, 948 decisions) appear as separate entries in this data, as do Royal & Sun Alliance Insurance Plc (35.1%, 1,037 decisions) and Royal & Sun Alliance Insurance Limited (35.5%, 652 decisions). These may relate to related corporate entities within the same group, but Veste's data does not roll subsidiaries into a single parent figure, and this article does not attempt to combine them. None of these firm-level figures are restricted to the most recent 90-day window; they reflect each firm's full recorded history in this category, so they illustrate the range of outcomes across the market rather than explaining the specific recent fall.
What might be driving the recent fall, and what the data cannot say
The observed pattern is a decline in both the number of published home insurance claim decisions and the proportion upheld, concentrated in the spring of 2026. Veste's data cannot say why complaint volumes or uphold rates have moved in this way. It does not include information on the nature of underlying claims driving each month's decisions, the mix of firms contributing to each period, or any change in Ombudsman casework practice. A fall in volume alongside a fall in the uphold rate is consistent with several different explanations, including a change in the mix of case types reaching decision, a change in the mix of firms whose cases were decided in this window, or normal month-to-month variation of the kind visible throughout the 25-month series (which has ranged from a low of 20.8% in April 2026 to a high of 48.4% in October 2024). The data does not allow Veste to distinguish between these possibilities, and readers should not infer that insurers' claims handling has changed, or that the Ombudsman has altered its approach, from this comparison alone.
Individual decisions, for illustration only
Four decisions published on 15 June 2026, drawn from Veste's underlying case data, illustrate the range of issues actually being decided rather than any statistical trend. In one, concerning Haven Insurance Company Limited, a burglary claim was not upheld because the Ombudsman found that entry to the complainant's home, through an unlocked back door, involved force but not the violence required by the policy's theft exclusion, even though a communal gate had been forced. In another, involving Tesco Underwriting Limited, a motor insurance complaint over a non-fault accident settlement was not upheld, with the Ombudsman finding the insurer had reasonably preferred a lower repair estimate and had fairly excluded storage charges incurred before it was notified of them. A complaint against Intact Insurance UK Limited over delays in a water escape claim was not upheld, the Ombudsman finding £250 already paid was appropriate compensation for what were assessed as minor errors in a claim settled within a month. And a complaint against Acasta European Insurance Company Limited, over furniture care insurance, was upheld in relation to claim handling delays and communication, with £300 compensation directed, even though the underlying settlement offer itself was found to be fair.
These four cases are presented as examples of the type of dispute reaching the Ombudsman in this category, not as evidence of a broader pattern in any one firm's conduct. A single decision, upheld or not, does not establish a trend for the firm concerned.
What this means
The headline figure, a 4.7 percentage point fall in the uphold rate for home insurance claim disputes over the latest 90-day window, is real in Veste's data and sits on a sample large enough to be measured with reasonable confidence. But it should be read in the context of a longer decline that has been running since 2023, when the annual uphold rate stood at 44.8%, through 43.6% in 2024 and 39.0% in 2025 to 30.2% so far in 2026. Seen against that backdrop, the latest quarter's 28.2% looks less like an isolated event and more like the continuation of an existing trajectory, albeit one still subject to considerable month-to-month variation, as the swing between April 2026's 20.8% and June 2026's 29.8% shows.
For anyone monitoring this category, the more useful signal is not the single quarter-on-quarter change but the multi-year direction, combined with the reminder that these are published Ombudsman decisions, a different and smaller population than all complaints made to firms in this category.