The Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) has confirmed a package of reforms designed to modernise how complaints are handled. The reforms focus on: Introducing a new registration stage before investigation. Clarifying and expanding dismissal powers. Updating the “fair and reasonable” test used in complaint decisions. 1. New Registration Stage The Financial
The Challenge: A leading insurer engaged Huntswood to manage a large-scale remediation programme involving a significant population of potentially vulnerable and bereaved customers. The challenge was to deliver fair and accurate customer outcomes at scale, while maintaining high-quality customer interactions, efficient operations, and regulatory compliance throughout the programme. Our Solution:
The Challenge: Following FCA intervention, a leading UK and multinational insurer was required to appoint a Skilled Person under Section 166 to assess the effectiveness of governance arrangements across its group and subsidiary entities. The review needed to evaluate whether recent governance enhancements had been fully embedded and were operating
A leading device protection provider operating across Asia and Europe was experiencing rapid growth across multiple European markets. Supporting insurance and subscription based device protection products for major telecommunications, retail, manufacturing and financial services partners, the organisation needed a scalable, multilingual customer support and claims handling solution that could maintain
The Challenge: With increasing regulatory scrutiny around Consumer Duty, complaints handling and FOS outcomes, a leading UK insurance provider sought independent assurance to strengthen governance, improve outcome-focused reporting, embed effective learning from complaints and Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) feedback, and ensure root cause analysis was driving meaningful business improvements.
Customers judge brands on how they fix problems, not just how they sell. There was a time when customer experience was largely defined by moments of delight, seamless onboarding and personalised recommendations. Brands invested heavily in creating memorable experiences designed to win customers over. Today, the moments that matter most
For years, UK general insurers have focused on reducing indemnity spend as the primary lever for claims profitability. In 2026, that assumption is being challenged. Increasingly, the true cost of claims is not the payout itself, but the operational friction that surrounds it. Hidden claims leakage is occurring across the value chain.
The Challenge: At its peak in December 2023, complaint volumes had escalated to the point where ~300+ FTE were required to keep pace with demand, resulting in unsustainable cost base for the client. A lack of visibility within Salesforce made it difficult to track cases through to resolution, contributing to
Many organisations still view complaint management primarily as a regulatory requirement. A necessary control designed to reduce risk, satisfy regulators and resolve issues once something has gone wrong. That perspective is becoming increasingly outdated. Having worked with complaint operations across multiple sectors, one thing has become clear: the organisations extracting
Complaints are often treated as an operational burden. They arrive late in a customer journey, demand time and resource, and carry regulatory and reputational risk. So organisations do what they are designed to do: they process them efficiently, bring them to closure, and move on. But in doing so, most
