Upheld: failure to treat vulnerable customer fairly; poor service; incorrect charging complaint against Admiral Insurance (Gibraltar) Limited

Decision detail

Summary

Miss H complained about poor service during an August 2025 call with Admiral Insurance regarding a home insurance quotation. Miss H, who has dyslexia and registered support needs, requested documents be emailed so she could use assistive technology, but the agent declined citing end of shift and offered to send them the next day. The agent also incorrectly charged an additional £2.15 premium. Miss H refused the offer and did not renew. The call caused significant distress and subsequently triggered a mental health crisis requiring crisis intervention team involvement. Admiral initially paid £100 compensation, but the ombudsman found this inadequate given Miss H's vulnerability and ordered a further £100 payment for total compensation of £200.

The Ombudsman's reasoning

The ombudsman found that while the agent did not refuse to help Miss H, he failed to treat her fairly as a vulnerable customer with registered support needs. The agent should have proactively offered email delivery without Miss H needing to explain her dyslexia. Although no direct medical evidence linked the call to the later CRHT escalation six months later, the ombudsman accepted Miss H's testimony that the call triggered her symptoms and resulted in clinical escalation. The vulnerability made Miss H susceptible to greater impact from the poor service, making the initial £100 compensation inadequate.

How this compares

Source

Read the original decision on the Financial Ombudsman Service website