A falling uphold rate, but also a falling caseload
Between the prior 90-day window and the most recent one, the uphold rate for home insurance claim disputes decided by the Financial Ombudsman fell from 32.9% to 28.2%, a drop of 4.7 percentage points. Over the same two windows, the number of decisions fell too, from 659 to 557, a decline 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 falling uphold rate alongside a falling caseload is worth treating carefully before reaching for a headline about insurers hardening their stance.
The uphold rate used throughout this analysis follows Veste's standard definition: the number of upheld decisions plus half the number of partially upheld decisions, divided by the total. This method credits partial outcomes proportionately rather than ignoring them, which matters in a category where partial upholds are common.
The numbers in context
Across the full run of data Veste holds on home insurance claim disputes, from the first recorded decision on 4 April 2013 to the most recent on 15 June 2026, there have been 25,682 decisions. Of these, 8,236 were upheld, 3,142 were partially upheld and 14,304 were not upheld, giving an overall uphold rate of 38.2% across the entire period. That long-run figure sits above the uphold rate for the full Financial Ombudsman corpus of 401,815 decisions with an outcome, which stands at 28.8%. Home insurance claim disputes have historically been upheld somewhat more often than the average Ombudsman case, though the gap has narrowed sharply in the most recent data, as the 90-day current-window rate of 28.2% now sits close to that corpus-wide baseline.
The monthly series, covering the 25 months from June 2024 to June 2026, shows how the recent quarter fits into a longer pattern. Monthly uphold rates ran mostly in the high 30s and low 40s through the second half of 2024 and into mid-2025: 40.5% in June 2024, 45.2% in September 2024, 48.4% in October 2024, and still 41.9% in June 2025. From autumn 2025 onward the monthly rate drifts lower and becomes more erratic: 37.9% in September 2025, 35.3% in October 2025, 43.9% in November 2025, then 33.9% in December 2025. The first half of 2026 shows the lowest readings in the whole series: 31.2% in January, 34.1% in February, 32.4% in March, then a sharp fall to 20.8% in April on a monthly total of 137 decisions, before recovering slightly to 26.7% in May and 29.8% in June, the latter month on a much smaller sample of 109 decisions.
That April 2026 figure of 20.8% is the lowest single month in the whole 25-month series, but it rests on a monthly total of 137 decisions, smaller than several other months in the series, and single-month swings of this kind are more likely to reflect the mix of cases decided that month than a durable change in outcomes. The three-month run of April, May and June 2026 forms the bulk of the current 90-day comparison window and helps explain why the quarterly figure of 28.2% is lower than the 2025 monthly averages.
The longer annual picture
Looking at full calendar years puts the recent quarters in sharper relief. In 2022, the annual uphold rate was 35.7% on 2,387 decisions. It rose to 44.8% in 2023 on 2,528 decisions, the highest of the five years shown, then eased slightly to 43.6% in 2024 on 2,357 decisions. In 2025, the rate fell more noticeably, to 39.0% on 2,395 decisions. For 2026 so far, on 1,147 decisions, the rate stands at 30.2%, continuing the downward trajectory from the 2023 peak. This is a partial year, so it should not be read as a finished annual figure, but the direction is consistent with what the monthly series shows for the opening months of 2026.
Taken together, the year-on-year figures show a category that ran well above the Ombudsman's corpus-wide average through 2022 to 2024, then converged toward it through 2025 and into 2026. Whether that convergence continues, stabilises, or reverses cannot be answered from the data supplied here.
Firm and product comparisons
Among firms with a large enough sample to compare, Ageas Insurance Limited recorded the highest uphold rate of the ten most active businesses in this dataset, at 42.7% across 1,309 decisions. Admiral Insurance (Gibraltar) Limited followed closely at 42.6% on 565 decisions. At the other end, Lloyds Bank General Insurance Limited had the lowest uphold rate among the top ten, at 26.1% on 739 decisions, with U K Insurance Limited close behind at 29.7% on 948 decisions and Aviva Insurance Limited at 30.8% on 1,681 decisions, the largest single firm total in this list.
A structural point matters here. U K Insurance Limited and UK Insurance Limited appear as separate entries, with 948 and 1,241 decisions respectively and uphold rates of 29.7% and 39.6%. Similarly, Royal & Sun Alliance Insurance Plc and Royal & Sun Alliance Insurance Limited are recorded separately, with 1,037 and 652 decisions and uphold rates of 35.1% and 35.5%. Veste counts firms by the exact business name recorded on each published decision. Subsidiaries or differently registered entities within the same banking or insurance group are not combined, so any comparison between firms in this data reflects the entity named on the decision, not a consolidated group position.
Home insurance claim disputes sit within the broader home insurance product category, which covers 11,151 decisions at an uphold rate of 38.4%, close to the claim-specific figure of 38.2% for the full period. Other regulated products in this dataset show a spread of outcomes: motor insurance runs at 40.4% across 3,430 decisions, travel insurance at 42.9% across 1,893 decisions, GAP and warranty insurance at 48.2% across 302 decisions, while life and income protection sits lower at 26.8% across 392 decisions and PPI lower still at 25.3% across 81 decisions. Home insurance claims are not an outlier within general insurance, sitting in the middle of this range historically, though the recent quarterly figure of 28.2% would place it nearer the lower end if it persisted.
What appears to be driving the recent fall
The evidence available does not identify a single cause for the drop between the two 90-day windows. What can be observed is that the fall in the uphold rate has occurred alongside a fall in the number of decisions, not against a stable or rising caseload. A 15.5% drop in volume, from 659 to 557 decisions, means the current-window figure is built on a smaller base than the prior one, and the monthly data shows April and June 2026 in particular carrying lower totals than most months earlier in the series. Smaller monthly totals tend to produce more volatile rates, purely as a function of sample size, and this alone can account for some of the swing without any change in how firms or the Ombudsman are approaching cases.
It is also visible in the monthly series that the drift downward began before the current 90-day window, with rates already easing through the second half of 2025. That longer run suggests the latest quarter is a continuation of an existing pattern rather than an isolated event, though the data does not indicate what is behind that pattern, whether shifts in the types of claims being referred, the mix of firms involved, or changes in how claims are being assessed before reaching the Ombudsman.
Individual decisions as illustration
Four decisions published on 15 June 2026 give a sense of the kinds of disputes making up this category, though none should be read as representative of a trend.
In one case, a home insurance customer's burglary claim against Haven Insurance Company Limited was not upheld. The Ombudsman found that although a burglar had forced entry through a locked communal gate, entry into the customer's actual home was through an unlocked back door, which met the policy's requirement for force but not for violence, so the theft exclusion applied.
In another, complainants sought £15,000 in compensation from Intact Insurance UK Limited over delays and communication errors in a water escape claim, on top of £250 already paid by the insurer across two final responses. The Ombudsman found the claim had been settled within one month and that the errors were minor, concluding the £250 already paid was appropriate and declining to uphold the complaint, while noting that any health-related claims would need to be pursued separately through the courts.
A motor insurance case against Tesco Underwriting Limited, included here for product comparison, involved a dispute between a customer's preferred repair estimate of £9,909 and the insurer's estimate of £4,235, ultimately settled with a cash-in-lieu payment of £2,985. The Ombudsman found Tesco's handling fair, including its decision not to cover storage charges incurred before it was notified of them.
A further case, upheld against Acasta European Insurance Company Limited over a furniture care claim rather than home insurance directly, resulted in £300 compensation for unexplained delays in claim handling, even though the underlying settlement offer itself was found to be fair and in line with policy terms.
These four decisions show the range of reasoning the Ombudsman applies, from strict application of policy wording to compensation for service failures distinct from the underlying claim decision. They are illustrations of process, not evidence of a pattern across any single firm.
What the data does and does not show
The data confirms that the uphold rate for home insurance claim disputes fell between two 90-day windows, that both windows meet the minimum sample size Veste applies, and that this movement sits within a longer downward drift visible since around September 2025. It does not show why fewer decisions were published in the latest window, what proportion of underlying complaints to firms this represents, or whether the current low point in April 2026 will persist. Published Ombudsman decisions are also not the same population as all complaints made to a firm, since many complaints are resolved before reaching a published decision, or do not proceed to that stage at all.
Conclusion
The clearest, most defensible reading of this data is that home insurance claim disputes have seen a genuine, sample-supported fall in their uphold rate over the most recent quarter, set against a genuine fall in decision volume, within a longer decline that has been building since late 2025. Anyone using these figures to judge an individual firm's current practice should look at that firm's own published total and rate rather than the category-wide movement, and should bear in mind that firms with the same banking or insurance group name are not combined in this dataset.