The Financial Ombudsman Service told Insurance Business this week that the number of disputes made to the service concerning brokers could continue to rise over the next 12 months.
As brokers become more of a focus for FOS, the industry has been urged to keep the best records possible in a bid to clear up processes once disputes are lodged.
John Price, lead ombudsman of General Insurance for FOS, told Insurance Business that FOS “are starting to look at,” the rising number of disputes in a bid to understand the industry better and urged brokers to keep good records of all their interactions.
“I think the brokers just need to make sure they keep very clear notes on the terms of engagement, very clear notes on the instructions they have, very clear notes on their interaction with their clients so where issues do arise, they can present information and we can be satisfied that they’ve done everything that they should do as a professional in those circumstances.
“These days we shouldn’t see circumstances where a broker comes in and says ‘we had a meeting because in my diary there is a page crossed out with meeting Joe Blow on it’ we should have quite clear records of the meeting, what occurred during the meeting, what the instructions where and what the response to the consumer was so we can properly and fairly deal with the disputes.”
Have you been involved in a broker dispute? What more would you like to see done by both the industry and FOS when it comes to broker disputes? Let us know in the comments below.
