Ibrahim asked us to investigate whether his insurer should pay him compensation for an administrative error it made during the renewal of his pet insurance policy.
What happened
In the run up to Ibrahim’s renewal date, he received a renewal notice from his insurer by post. He was surprised to see the notice said he’d need to pay 20% of all future claims in addition to his excess. The insurer said this was because his dog would be eight years old by the time the policy renewed. Ibrahim complained to his insurer. He said his dog wasn’t due to turn eight years old until just before the following renewal. And he highlighted that in his last conversation with the insurer he’d asked for all correspondence to be sent by email.
The insurer was able to quickly verify Ibrahim’s dog’s age from veterinary notes it had been sent for a previous claim. It could also see from its call notes that Ibrahim had indeed asked for all correspondence to be sent by email. It accepted it had made mistakes on both counts. It amended Ibrahim’s contact preferences and issued an amended renewal notice by email that day. It apologised to Ibrahim in the covering email that he’d had to go out of his way to highlight its errors.
Ibrahim referred his complaint to us because he thought he was due compensation because of the frustration and chasing around he had to do because of the insurer’s mistake.
What we said
We recognised that the reference to a 20% contribution to future claims, and the arrival of the renewal notice by post would have come as a surprise for Ibrahim. And we acknowledged that he’d had to make a phone call to highlight the insurer’s errors. But ultimately, we felt this was a one-off incident that the insurer had put right for Ibrahim straight away. And that any inconvenience caused was minor. We were pleased to see that the insurer had apologised, and we decided that monetary compensation wasn’t warranted.