Not upheld: claim settlement delays and mismanagement of expectations complaint against Covea Insurance plc

Decision detail

Summary

Mrs H complained that Covea Insurance caused delays in settling her motor insurance claim for a total loss vehicle, which took over three years. The main issue was that Covea could not settle the claim until a finance marker was removed by the finance company, a process that took over two years. Additionally, Covea incorrectly told Mrs H her payment would be made within five days but retracted this the same day when it realized the claim had not been fully validated. The ombudsman found that the overall delays were not avoidable by Covea and that its apology for the brief error was fair and reasonable, therefore not upholding the complaint.

The Ombudsman's reasoning

The ombudsman found that while Covea made considerable delays in settling the claim, these were not avoidable as they resulted from Covea's reasonable attempts to progress the claim, Mrs H's unavailability, policy disclosure disagreements, missing information, and the finance company's slow responses. Although Covea made an error in incorrectly telling Mrs H her payment would be made within five days, it promptly corrected this within hours. The ombudsman considered that Covea was entitled to request documents to validate the claim and that its apology was appropriate compensation for the brief period of raised expectations caused by the error.

How this compares

Source

Read the original decision on the Financial Ombudsman Service website