Aggregate complaints data: 2021 H1

We use the complaints data to help assess how well firms are treating their customers and how their performance changes over time. We also use this data to guide our work in supervising firms and markets and to highlight potential concerns with specific financial products.

Aggregate complaints data sortable tables: 2021 H1[1]

Download the aggregate complaints data[2] (XLSX)

• Key findings
• Opened complaints[3]
• Closed complaints[4]
• Complaints upheld[5]
• Redress paid[6]
• About the complaints data[7]

Key Findings

• In 2021 H1, financial services firms received 2.04m complaints, 7% lower than in 2020 H2 (2.19m). This is the lowest level recorded since 2016 H2 (figure 1).
   
• The insurance and pure protection product group saw the largest decrease in complaints received by firms (13%): from 1.01m complaints in 2020 H2 to 0.88m complaints in 2021 H1. There was also a noticeable decrease in home finance complaints (11%) while there were significant increases in investments (18%) and decumulation and pensions complaints (26%).
   
• The decrease in insurance and pure protection complaints continues to be driven by the tailing off of complaints about Payment Protection Insurance (PPI) (256,416 in 2020 H2 to 56,619 in 2021 H1). There has also been a decrease of 63% in travel insurance related complaints, after a spike in 2020 driven by Covid-19.
   
• Over the last few years, complaints about platforms have increased from 8,431 in 2019 H2 to 17,090 in 2021 H1 (an increase of 103%). Complaints about workplace personal pensions have also been steadily increasing from 7,642 in 2017 H2 to 14,974 in 2021 H1 (an increase of 96%).
   
• Excluding PPI, the total volume of complaints received by firms has increased in 2021 H1, by around 50,000 to 1.98m (figure 1).
   
• Current accounts was the most complained about product in 2021 H1 (25% of all complaints). Other general insurance products (15%), credit cards (11%) and motor & transport insurance (10%) are the next most complained about products.
   
• In terms of number of complaints compared to total number of products in force, home finance has the highest levels (8.6 complaints per 1000 balances outstanding in 2021 H1) although this decreased from 9.6 in 2020 H2. Insurance and pure protection peaked in 2019 H2 at 18 complaints per 1000 policies in force before falling rapidly since (figure 2).
   
• PPI complaints took longer to resolve, on average, compared to the previous period as well as compared to other product groups. In 2021 H1, 80% of PPI cases were closed after the 8-week deadline compared to only 7% of other cases.
   
• The total redress paid for all complaints decreased by 61% from £1,439m in 2020 H2 to £559m in 2021 H1, as shown in Table 2. However, excluding PPI, the total redress paid increased by 27% from £223.9m to £284.5m over the same period. The table also shows the average redress paid per upheld PPI complaint increased from £2,281 in 2020 H2 to £3,119 in 2021 H1 and increased from £180 to £221 for all other complaints, excluding PPI, during the same time period.  

Note: complaints recorded for 2016 H2 include firms whose reporting periods ended on or after 30 December 2016. These firms accounted for approximately 90% of complaints.

Complaints closed 

Firms have 8 weeks after receiving a complaint to provide a written response. 

Table 1 – Complaints closed in the period

Source: FCA complaints data

Table 2 – Complaints upheld and redress paid

Source: FCA complaints data

Find out more about the complaints data[8]

Copyright

The data on this page is available under the terms of the Open Government Licence[9].