According to the Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA) new general insurance scorecard – a pilot project listing general insurers based on the claims made by their customers – listed home insurer Methodist Insurance has a ‘claims frequency’ of 10-12.4%.
This means the church insurer is receiving more claims from its clients than any of its rivals, if divided by the average number of policies in force.
Only specialist and high value insurer Chubb / Ace European Group had a higher claims frequency at 20-25%. The majority of the 35 firms listed by the FCA scored below 7.4%. Legal and General Insurance for instance, was measured at 5% to 7.4%, Lloyds Bank and Aviva at below 4.9%.
The regulator decided to publish the data, which also ranks firms by their ‘claims acceptance rate’ and ‘average claims payout’, after its general insurance study found poor value in both add-on and some stand-alone products sold by firms.
It also found it was difficult to assess value for consumers due to the lack of a commonly available measure – something the new data seeks to solve.
According to the data, which looks at the year to 31 August, all firms paid out on at least three-quarter of claims, many on more than 90%, with Zenith Insurance and UIA being most reluctant.
The data looks at four general insurance products: home insurance (combined buildings and contents); home emergency insurance; personal accident insurance sold as an add-on to motor or home insurance; and key cover sold as an add-on to motor.
The FCA said it expects that use of the data will improve transparency in these markets and incentivise firms to improve their value offering to consumers.
Executive director of strategy and competition Christopher Woolard said: “We want stakeholders to have access to a wide range of information about the value of general insurance products that goes beyond price. We expect the pilot publication to help incentivise firms to improve the value they offer consumers.
“The pilot will allow us to refine the value measures and obtain further evidence of the effectiveness of these measures ahead of any potential consultation.”
The FCA will publish further pilot data for the year ending 31 August 2017 and will consider a further publication of data for the year ending 31 August 2018, it said.
