Upheld: Motor insurance, claim handling complaint against Aviva Insurance Limited

Decision detail

Summary

Mr S and Mrs S complained about Aviva's handling of two home insurance claims for water damage (August 2024 and January 2025). Aviva accepted both claims but caused unreasonable delays in investigating the second claim and made errors delaying payment of disturbance allowance and fuel costs. Aviva arranged alternative accommodation approximately 17 miles from Mr S's home, which was initially agreed but caused considerable disruption to the family's work and daily life. When Mr S raised concerns in April 2025, Aviva failed to explore whether closer properties were available, instead only offering to pay additional fuel costs. The ombudsman upheld the complaint, finding Aviva's service failures and failure to mitigate distress once concerns were raised warranted compensation of £1,000 total and a requirement to reconsider alternative accommodation options.

The Ombudsman's reasoning

The ombudsman found that Aviva failed to handle the claims promptly and fairly. Specifically: (1) unreasonable delays of approximately two months in investigating the second claim with no good reason; (2) an error on a report causing approximately one month additional delay in payment; (3) failure to explore alternative accommodation options closer to Mr S's home when he explicitly raised concerns in April 2025 about the distance causing distress and inconvenience to his family. While the initial placement in accommodation 17 miles away was reasonable given it was agreed and the location was known, Aviva should have proactively sought alternatives once Mr S made clear the location was causing considerable disruption. The ombudsman rejected claims for loss of earnings due to insufficient evidence of causation but upheld the complaint regarding service failures and lack of mitigation efforts.

How this compares

Source

Read the original decision on the Financial Ombudsman Service website