Quarterly complaints data: Q2 2021/22

New enquiries: 70,658 

New complaints: 40,443 

Referrals to an ombudsman: 8,364

 

Uphold rate excluding PPI: 39%

Uphold rate including PPI: 38%

Highest uphold rate: Special event insurance (wedding insurance) – 77%

Most complained-about product: Current accounts – 6,109

New complaints from small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs): 260 (included in totals above)

Our Q2 2021/22 trends in more detail

Fraud and scams

• We have continued to see a high number of complaints about fraud and scams in our casework in Q2 2021/22, and 30% more when compared to Q2 2020/21.
• Many of the complaints we receive about fraud relate to what is known as “authorised” fraud, where a person or business is tricked into sending money to a fraudster posing as a genuine account holder. In Q2 we received around 2,200 complaints about authorised fraud – and we upheld around three quarters in the consumers’ favour.
• The uphold rate for total fraud and scam complaints in Q2 2021/22 was 65%, compared to 62% in Q2 2020/21. 

The ongoing impact of Covid-19

• In Q2, we continued to see a decline in complaints about products directly relating to the pandemic: for example, the number of new complaints about travel insurance fell by 84% in Q2 2021/22 (397) when compared to Q2 2020/21 (2,561).
• Complaints about the Bounce Back Loan Scheme (BBLS) fell further this quarter, especially in the number of complaints related to the lending decisions from banks around the Government-backed loans, which we understandably saw in much higher volumes in the early stages of the pandemic.
• Complaints about wedding insurance have the highest uphold rate in Q2 at 77%, though the number of new complaints in Q2 2021/22 is significantly lower compared to the high volumes we saw in 2020/21 when we heard from hundreds of consumers complaining about how insurers handled their claims during the pandemic. 

In each release of quarterly data (about both financial products and relating to complaints about claims management companies), we publish the number of new enquiries and new complaints received in the period, together with the number of ombudsman referrals and the percentage of cases upheld in favour of the customer.

From the Q1 2020/21 releases, we changed the threshold for our reporting on the number of new complaints received. In previous releases, we published data where our service had received at least 30 new complaints about a product or service in the relevant reporting period. From Q1 2020/21, we reduced this threshold to the receipt of at least 10 new complaints, to increase the granularity of insight we’re able to offer stakeholders about complaints trends. Products and services where we have received at least one, but fewer than 10 new complaints, will be denoted as “<10”. 

We have also taken the opportunity to update our criteria for publishing uphold rates. Previously, we published the percentage of cases upheld in favour of the customer where we had both received 30 new complaints and resolved 30 complaints (excluding those we dismissed or decided were outside our jurisdiction) about a product or service in the relevant period. From Q1 2020/21, we will publish the uphold rate where we have resolved 30 or more complaints about the relevant product or service in the period – we will no longer apply a threshold relating to the receipt of new complaints when giving uphold rate data.