Not upheld: claims recording and data sharing disclosure complaint against Accredited Insurance (Europe) Ltd

Decision detail

Summary

Mr S complained that Accredited Insurance had not made clear that reporting a potential central heating leak would result in a record being made on the Claims and Underwriting Exchange (CUE), even though no leak was found and no claim was pursued. The ombudsman found that Accredited had clearly disclosed the CUE recording requirement both in the policy wording and in an online portal statement that Mr S had to confirm before submitting the claim form. The statement explicitly warned that making a claim could affect future premiums. The ombudsman concluded that a reasonable consumer would understand from the language used ('proceed with the claim') that they were making a claim, and that when Mr S subsequently asked to cancel, he was withdrawing it. Recording it as a withdrawn claim with £0 costs accurately reflected what happened and was fair, as the CUE record would show to other insurers that no repairs or payments were made. The complaint was not upheld and no remedy was ordered.

The Ombudsman's reasoning

The ombudsman found that Accredited was required to record the incident on CUE and had made this clear to Mr S before he submitted the claim form. The online portal statement explicitly stated 'if you wish to proceed with the claim' and warned that making a claim could affect future premiums and that information would be shared with CUE. A reasonable consumer would understand from this language that they were making a claim. When Mr S subsequently asked to cancel, he was withdrawing that claim. Recording it as a withdrawn claim with £0 costs accurately reflected what happened and was fair, as the CUE record would show to other insurers that no repairs were carried out and no payments were made. The ombudsman rejected Mr S's argument that it should be recorded as 'notification only' rather than a withdrawn claim, finding that the distinction between how Mr S subjectively understood his actions versus the objective nature of what he agreed to was not determinative.

How this compares

Source

Read the original decision on the Financial Ombudsman Service website