A double-digit fall, but on fewer decisions
Between the prior 90-day window and the most recent one, the uphold rate for Financial Ombudsman decisions on motor insurance total-loss valuations fell by 16.6 percentage points, from 57.0% to 40.4%. Over the same two windows the number of published decisions fell too, from 114 to 78, a drop of 36 decisions, or 31.6%.
Both windows meet Veste's minimum sample threshold of 30 decisions, so the comparison is not disqualified on sample-size grounds alone. But a fall of this size, arriving at the same time as a meaningful drop in volume, is exactly the kind of pattern that deserves scrutiny before it is read as a genuine shift in Ombudsman behaviour or insurer conduct. Fewer decisions mean each one carries more weight in the percentage, and swings of this magnitude are not unusual in a monthly series with volumes this size.
What the underlying numbers show
Across the full monthly series, which runs for 25 months from June 2024 to June 2026, the uphold rate for this category has moved between 30.8% and 71.7%. The most recent complete month, May 2026, recorded an uphold rate of 30.8% on 26 decisions, the lowest monthly rate in the series alongside some of its smaller volumes. June 2026, still incomplete at the point of this analysis with only 9 decisions recorded, shows 44.4%.
By contrast, June 2024 opened the series at 71.7% on 30 decisions, and July 2024 recorded 71.2% on 33 decisions. The rate has trended downward with considerable month-to-month noise since then: several months in the second half of 2025 sat in the 46% to 63% range, and March 2026 recorded 44.6% on 46 decisions, one of the larger monthly samples in the run.
Taken together, the monthly figures show a category where the uphold rate rarely settles for long. Months with 25 to 45 decisions swing between the low 30s and low 70s in percentage terms. Against that backdrop, a two-window comparison covering roughly six months of data (78 plus 114 decisions) sits within the range of variation the monthly series already displays.
The longer run: yearly figures
The year-on-year figures put the recent fall into a wider context. In 2022, the uphold rate for this category stood at 36.7% across 266 decisions. It rose to 45.5% in 2023 (376 decisions), then jumped further to 65.2% in 2024 (374 decisions), the highest annual rate in the five years shown. It eased to 56.1% in 2025 (388 decisions), and the partial-year 2026 figure, based on 180 decisions so far, stands at 50.0%.
All five annual figures meet Veste's minimum sample threshold. Read this way, the current 90-day rate of 40.4% is below every annual figure since 2023, but it is not far removed from the 36.7% recorded across the whole of 2022. What looks like a sharp short-term fall against the immediately preceding 90 days looks less unusual once set against a five-year run that has itself moved between roughly 37% and 65% on an annual basis.
The category's overall figure across the full period Veste holds data for, from 2013-04-10 to 2026-06-10, is an uphold rate of 35.8% across 3,601 decisions (1,077 upheld in full, 424 upheld in part, 2,100 not upheld). That long-run rate of 35.8% sits close to the 2022 annual figure and below the elevated rates seen in 2024 and 2025, suggesting those two years were, in this category, comparatively high points rather than a new steady state.
How this category compares with related products
Motor insurance total-loss valuation complaints form part of the broader motor insurance category, which Veste records at an uphold rate of 37.0% across 2,811 decisions. The valuation sub-category's all-time rate of 35.8% is close to that figure, which is consistent with total-loss valuation disputes being a substantial and fairly representative slice of motor insurance complaints generally.
For context, home insurance decisions carry an uphold rate of 27.2% across 265 decisions, motor finance (PCP or HP) decisions carry a rate of 22.9% across 35 decisions, and the miscellaneous "other regulated product" category sits at 35.5% across 451 decisions. Against the baseline uphold rate across Veste's entire corpus of 401,341 decisions with an outcome, which stands at 28.8%, motor total-loss valuation complaints are upheld more often than the typical published decision, whether measured by the all-time rate of 35.8% or the higher rates seen in 2024 and 2025.
Firm-level picture
Veste's data records each firm by the business name printed on the Ombudsman's decision, which means related entities within the same insurance group are not combined. Two examples in this dataset illustrate the point: U K Insurance Limited, with 192 decisions and an uphold rate of 31.3%, and UK Insurance Limited, with 166 decisions and an uphold rate of 19.0%, are recorded separately despite the similarity of their names. Readers should treat these as distinct entries in the published record rather than as a single combined statistic.
Among the ten firms with the largest volume of published decisions in this category, uphold rates vary widely. Admiral Insurance (Gibraltar) Limited recorded the highest uphold rate among this group, 65.3% across 288 decisions. Liverpool Victoria Insurance Company Limited recorded the lowest, 12.5% across 100 decisions. Between those two, esure Insurance Limited stands at 42.0% across 392 decisions, the largest single volume of any firm in the table; Admiral Insurance Company Limited, a separately named entity from its Gibraltar counterpart, sits at 26.9% across 321 decisions; Advantage Insurance Company Limited at 33.6% across 223 decisions; Aviva Insurance Limited at 26.5% across 206 decisions; Ageas Insurance Limited at 29.9% across 199 decisions; and AXA Insurance UK Plc at 24.7% across 95 decisions.
All ten firms in this table meet Veste's minimum sample size of 30 decisions, so the comparisons are drawn only from firms where the volume supports it. The spread between Admiral Insurance (Gibraltar) Limited's 65.3% and Liverpool Victoria Insurance Company Limited's 12.5% is substantial, though it reflects the published decisions recorded against each business name over the whole period Veste holds data for, not necessarily current practice or the outcome of any individual claim before or after this dataset.
What might be driving the recent fall, and what remains uncertain
The supplied data lets us describe the recent movement precisely but does not let us explain it with certainty. Two observed facts sit alongside each other: the uphold rate fell by 16.6 percentage points across the two windows, and the volume of decisions fell by 36, a 31.6% drop, at the same time. It is possible that a smaller number of published decisions in the most recent window simply happened to contain a lower proportion of upheld outcomes, which is a matter of ordinary sampling variation rather than any change in Ombudsman approach or insurer behaviour. It is equally possible that the mix of firms or the nature of disputes reaching decision in the latest window differed from the prior one. The data provided does not break down the two 90-day windows by firm, so this cannot be tested further here.
What can be said is that the monthly series already shows regular swings of ten to twenty percentage points between adjacent months on similar volumes, for instance the fall from 71.2% in July 2024 to 55.0% in August 2024, or the fall from 61.9% in September 2025 to 50.0% in October 2025. A fall of 16.6 percentage points across a longer 90-day window, while notable in absolute terms, is not obviously larger than movements the category has produced repeatedly over the past two years.
Individual decisions as illustration
Four recent decisions, all decided within days of each other in early June 2026, show the range of outcomes this category produces. The Ombudsman did not uphold a complaint against Haven Insurance Company Limited (DRN-6381928, decided 2026-06-10) concerning a liability decision and total-loss assessment, finding the insurer's inspection process and liability decision reasonable. In a decision against First Central Underwriting Limited (DRN-6415266, decided 2026-06-09), the Ombudsman upheld a complaint after finding the insurer's settlement offer of £4,292 did not match comparable vehicle advertisements averaging £4,781, and ordered payment of that higher figure plus interest and £100 compensation. A complaint against the Society of Lloyd's (DRN-6310791, decided 2026-06-09) concerning an uncommon left-hand-drive vehicle was not upheld, the Ombudsman finding the insurer's £53,000 valuation fair given the vehicle's characteristics. And a complaint against Admiral Insurance (Gibraltar) Limited (DRN-6262837, decided 2026-06-05) was upheld, with the Ombudsman ordering the insurer to pay the highest of four trade guide valuations, £19,690, rather than the average it had originally offered.
These four decisions are presented as examples of the kinds of dispute and reasoning found in this category during the period, not as evidence of a trend at any individual firm. Single decisions cannot establish a pattern.
What the data does and does not show
The data shows a clear, measurable fall in the uphold rate between two specific 90-day windows, alongside a fall in decision volume, and it shows that the category's monthly and annual figures have moved substantially over the past several years without any single sustained direction. It does not show why any individual complaint was upheld or not upheld beyond what is recorded in the case summaries, and it does not establish that any firm's conduct has changed, only that the published decisions recorded against certain business names carry certain uphold rates over the period covered.
The practical implication
For firms and claimants alike, the more useful figure here may not be the short-term 90-day comparison but the annual pattern: an uphold rate that has moved between 36.7% and 65.2% across five calendar years suggests this category is genuinely variable year to year, not settling around a single steady figure. Anyone using a short window to judge current practice, whether at a single firm or across the category as a whole, should treat it as one data point in a series that has already shown it can move by double-digit percentage points within a matter of months.