The total overall number of complaints reported to the FSA increased by 59% to 3,577,599 in the first half of 2012.
The increase was driven by a rise in the volume of complaints about ‘general insurance and pure protection’ which increased by 99% to 2,541,430. The FSA said that most notably within this product group were the number of complaints about payment protection insurance (PPI) which rose by 129% to 2,232,294 making up 62% of total complaints.
There were 95,363 complaints concerning ‘mortgage business’, a large rise on the figure for the preceeding six months (52,722).
The number of banking complaints increased by 5% to 828,040. This represents a 3% increase since the first half of 2011 but is still below the levels seen at the end of 2008. Within banking products, the percentage of complaints about current accounts dropped by 13%. There was a small increase of 2% in complaints about savings and other banking products. Complaints about credit cards and unregulated loans continued to increase.
There was a 5% rise in the volume of complaints about decumulation, life and pensions products although this represented only a small increase since the first half of 2011 of 0.1%. The volume of complaints about endowments fell by 2% and the volume of complaints about investment bonds fell by 7%.
The number of complaints to banks and building societies increased by 67% in the first half of 2012 to 2,767,913.
Overall, complaints caused by ‘advising, selling and arranging’ increased by 116% to 2,362,051. Of those, the overwhelming majority (2,256,707, equating to 96%) were about general insurance and pure protection products.
The percentage of general insurance and pure protection complaints closed within eight weeks increased from 43% in 2011 H2 to 84% in 2012 H1 with the total number rising from 64% to 86%. This reflects the temporary extension to the complaints handling time limit rules which was granted to a small number of firms in the previous half year period, allowing them more than eight weeks to handle their backlog of PPI complaints.
The total number of closed complaints increased by 30% to 3,130,615. This was mainly caused by the number of closed general insurance and pure protection complaints which rose to 2,153,911.
The percentage of upheld complaints declined from 60% in 2011 H2 to 58% in 2012 H1. Again this was mainly caused by the upheld general insurance and pure protection complaints decreasing from 69% to 63%.
The total amount of redress paid increased from £2,250m in 2011 H2 to £3,155m in 2012 H1. Within this, redress paid for general insurance and pure protection products increased to £2,990m.