FCA PLANS FINE ON UNNAMED MOBILE PHONE INSURANCE PROVIDER

The UK's Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) plans to impose a significant fine on an unnamed provider of mobile phone insurance for poor handling of complaints, it said late last week. It said that it had reviewed the practices of nine companies, which together have a majority share of the mobile phone insurance market. The FCA found that some firms were not questioning why a high proportion of claims was being rejected and were therefore not feeding that back into better product design, and that descriptions of what was covered were "too broad and ambiguous". Recent Financial Ombudsman Service complaints data showed that policyholders' complaints about mobile phone insurance had one of the highest rates of being upheld. The FCA said that it had presented the results of its investigation to the companies concerned and that as a result changes were already being made. FCA Director of Supervision Clive Adamson said that it was important that insurance policies "provide the level of protection that they promise, and claims processes are fair". He added that "we have begun communicating the findings to the firms that took part in the review and they are making improvements". The FCA is undertaking a series of reviews of "everyday" insurance products. It is currently looking at how insurers use private investigators and how insurers handle claims.