The data on this page covers October to December 2022 (Q3 2022/23).
Our quarterly updates on financial products and services include the number of enquiries and new cases we received, and the proportion of complaints resolved in favour of customers.
Between October and December 2022, we received 68,342 new enquiries and 41,303 new complaints about financial products. On average we upheld 35% of the complaints resolved in this quarter. The most complained-about product was current accounts, followed by credit cards.
Our Q3 2022/23 trends in more detail
The top five most complained-about products
- Current accounts – 6,082
- Credit cards – 3,216
- Hire purchase (motor) – 2,987
- Car or motorcycle insurance – 2,769
- Running account credit – 2,493
The top five most complained-about products in Q3 are largely consistent with recent quarters – with current accounts, credit cards and car or motorcycle insurance having all been in the top five every quarter since Q1 2021/22 and hire purchase (motor) in the top five since Q1 2022/23.
We continue to see a high number of complaints about car or motorcycle insurance and hire purchase (motor) and have taken the opportunity to share some of our insight around these two motor-related products below.
Complaints about hire purchase (motor)
Complaints about hire purchase (motor) have been rising since Q4 2021/22, and in Q3 it is now the third most-complained about product in our data with 2,987 new complaints. Of the cases we resolved in Q3, we upheld 41% in consumers’ favour.
The majority of complaints about the product in Q3 were about charges, fees and commission. We have seen some fluctuation in levels of complaints over the last two years, and in 2020/21 we were seeing more complaints about the return of goods which has since been overtaken by charges, fees and commission.
Complaints about car or motorcycle insurance
In Q3, there were 2,769 complaints about car or motorcycle insurance, and it remains one of the top five most complained-about products in our data.
In some of the complaints we have seen, people complained that their car was worth more than their insurer had given them, following a theft or an accident where the car was written off. Where we upheld these complaints, it was often because we found the insurer’s offer was unfair. In some cases, we saw examples of insurers not considering all the available information, which tended to lead to offers that were less favourable.
We shared this insight with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and hosted a roundtable discussion on motor insurance in Q3, where we also shared insight with insurers and brokers about the cases we’re seeing and our approach to complaint-handling.
In December 2022, the FCA issued a statement warning insurers not to undervalue cars or other insured items when settling claims.
Find out more about our approach to complaints involving vehicle write-offs and valuations.
We have also seen an increase in enquiries from consumers about insurers rejecting their claim for a vehicle theft by deception. We recently published a blog about vehicle theft claims where we shared our general approach to complaints about declined claims following theft by deception and declined claims that involve a vehicle that has been modified.
About this data
We publish complaints data on financial products and services every quarter and updates on business complaints data every six months. Our quarterly updates on financial products and services include the number of enquiries and new cases we received, and the proportion of complaints resolved in favour of customers.
For information on the complaints we received about claims management companies (CMCs), please see our CMC quarterly data.
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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.
We publish data about products and services where we have received at least 10 new complaints in the reporting period. Products and services where we have received at least one, but fewer than 10 new complaints, are denoted as “<10”. We publish an uphold rate where we have resolved 30 or more complaints about the relevant product or service in the period. We no longer publish a separate overall and non-PPI uphold rate: the substantial fall in PPI complaint volumes makes that less informative than previously.
From Q1 2022/23 our taxonomy has reflected some changes enabling us to provide more insight into the types of complaints we receive. Find out more about the changes to our taxonomy.
