Complaints made against the insurance and pure protection sector increased by 10.1 per cent in the latter half of 2025, data from the Financial Conduct Authority has revealed.
The FCA’s Aggregate Complaints Data: 2025 H2, revealed that protection and insurance related complaints increased from 717,523 in the first six months of 2025 to 790,329 in the past six months.
This was the only product group to experience an increase in complaints as banking and credit cards, and decumulation and pensions both saw a decrease of 4.7 per cent and 6.6 per cent respectively.
Similarly, home finance experienced a 3.8 per cent fall in complaints and investments enjoyed a 6.9 per cent decrease.
This all contributed to the overall number of complaints in the second half of 2025 reaching 1.87mn, an increase of 0.9 per cent when compared to the first half of the year.
ArvatoTowner chief growth officer, James Towner, said: “Today’s FCA data confirms what complaints teams are already feeling day to day — complaints are rising again.
“With 1.87mn complaints recorded in just six months, financial services firms are still operating under relentless pressure and for some sectors it’s intensifying.”
Product types and redress
Additionally, the data revealed which products attracted the highest number of complaints, with current accounts taking the top spot with 541,493.
This was ahead of motor and transport, which received 255,194 complaints, a 33.5 per cent increase on H1, and credit cards, which received 211,903, a 3.1 per cent increase.
The rise in motor and transport complaints was specifically identified by Towner as being “particularly striking” as the FCA’s redress scheme has opened the door to a new wave of consumer claims that firms are only beginning to absorb.
Meanwhile, the FCA reported that the percentage of complaints that were upheld by firms decreased from 57.88 per cent to 55.50 per cent.
As a result, the total redress value paid for upheld complaints fell by nearly £50mn from £251,646,270 in the first half of 2025 to £206,117,088 in the second half.
Similarly, the average redress for upheld complaints fell to £215 from £238.
Response
Towner warned that the increase in complaints may represent a danger to firms as they are “still trying to solve a 2026 problem with 2016 thinking”.
He explained that Consumer Duty has “raised the bar permanently”, but that many complaints operations remain heavily manual.
“Firms need to work smarter: combining customer-focused process design with intelligent automation and AI for the repetitive, rules-based work, freeing people to focus on the judgment and empathy that actually moves the needle for consumers,” he said.
“The firms that do this will not just handle complaints better, but will learn from them faster, and prevent more of them in the first place.”
tom.dunstan@ft.com
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