Partially upheld: Service failures generally complaint against West Bay Insurance Plc

Decision detail

Summary

Miss R complained that West Bay unfairly recorded a driving incident on the CUE database after a third party insurer claimed her car had struck their policyholder's vehicle in April 2023. West Bay had written to Miss R four times requesting her account of events but received no response. The third party insurer provided video footage and photographs showing paint transfer evidence. West Bay initially told Miss R it would remove the CUE entry but later declined to do so, paying £150 compensation for this inconsistency. The ombudsman found West Bay's recording of the claim was fair and reasonable given the evidence and Miss R's non-response, but required correction of two technical anomalies: changing the status from 'settled' to 'withdrawn' and reclassifying a £6 cost from TPPD to 'other'.

The Ombudsman's reasoning

The ombudsman found that West Bay was required as a CUE signatory to record the claim once received from the third party insurer. Given that Miss R provided no response to four requests for her version of events, West Bay had only the third party's evidence (video and photographs showing the cars appeared to touch with matching paint transfer) to assess the claim. On the balance of probabilities, this evidence supported that the cars had come together. The ombudsman noted that while the video was not conclusive and no forensic paint analysis was conducted, West Bay was not required to conduct such analysis given Miss R's failure to respond. The subsequent closure of the claim as 'NCD allowed' (non-fault) was reasonable once the third party insurer ceased pursuing it. However, two technical anomalies were identified: the claim should have been recorded as 'withdrawn' rather than 'settled', and the £6 cost should have been classified as 'other' rather than TPPD. The ombudsman rejected removing the CUE entry entirely as it was legitimately entered, but required correction of these two entries.

How this compares

Source

Read the original decision on the Financial Ombudsman Service website