Given the number of issues people have with insurance a little knowledge is a wonderful thing.
FOS has released a list of insurers they deal with complaints from. (If it gets this far its obviously causing some angst for the customer)
You need to dig a little deeper to find the trading company but as an example Auto & General = Budget Direct.
AAI = Suncorp = AAMI, GIO, Shannons, Bingle, Insure my ride, Apia etc
This throws out the numbers a bit as there higher cost offerings improve the stats of there lower cost options. Pensioners (Apia) are also less likely to go through FOS for bad repairs.
Disclaimer: I really dislike Suncorp.
Thanks for posting this
The site has been ozbargained ;-)
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Thanks for posting that information. I've always believed that statistical data, particularly the ratio of complaints to sales made, is more informative than reviews left on websites (such as ProductReviews).
Looking at the data for Car insurance for example, it's interesting to note that the chance of a dispute with a budget insurer is several times higher than the median. Budget Direct, Hollard Insurance (Real Insurance) and Progressive all have a chance of dispute in the 28% to 45% range, compared with the average rate of 13%. Big insurers clearly have a much lower chance of dispute stat, e.g Insurance Australia Limited (NRMA) at 13% and AAI (AAMI) at 16%.
The surprising one is YOUI with a 8.5% chance of dispute which makes it more like a big insurer in terms of how likely they are going to give you trouble. But then again there are reports that YOUI's quotes often come up in the high end range anyway.
The takeaway message for me is that it's true what they say with insurance: you get what you pay for.