The FCA has fined Liberty Mutual Insurance Europe SE £5.2 million for failures in its oversight of mobile phone insurance claims and complaints handling

[Legal Beagles]

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has fined Liberty Mutual Insurance Europe SE (Liberty) £5,280,800 for failures between 5 July 2010 and 7 June 2015 in its oversight of its mobile phone insurance claims and complaints handling processes administered through a third party.

https://www.fca.org.uk/news/press-re...urope-se-fined

[Amethyst]

Quite a hefty fine there.

Liberty settled at an early stage of the investigation and therefore qualified for a 30% discount. Without the discount, the financial penalty would have been £7,544,000.

1. Final Notice 2018: Liberty Mutual Insurance Europe SE

2.7. The result of these failings was that certain of Liberty’s 2.6 million MPI customers were exposed to unfair treatment in respect of MPI claims and complaints, including:

(1) Approximately 6,000 customers were unfairly denied cover for claims for loss or theft if they had failed to comply with a requirement existing between June 2012 and February 2015 to download and install the Mobile Rescue App;

(2) A proportion of the 3,171 claims that were declined up to December 2015 due to suspicion of fraud were denied when there was insufficient evidence to support that suspicion, and some customers did not have their claims investigated adequately, due to an overreliance on voice analytics software operational between August 2012 and May 2015;

(3) Approximately 1,707 customers were unfairly denied cover through the inappropriate use of a policy exclusion for unattended loss which existed between July 2010 and December 2015;

(4) The great majority of the 1,627 customers who complained about denials of cover for late notification of their claim or for failure to install the Mobile Rescue App had the original decision overturned, creating a de facto two-stage claims process, which risked causing unfair outcomes for customers; and

(5) The approximately 11,000 customers who complained during the Relevant Period were at risk of having their complaints dismissed without a proper investigation having been undertaken, and were otherwise put at risk of their complaints not being handled fairly due to inadequate processes being in place for ensuring that complaints were dealt with fairly, impartially and consistently.