[Article] It pays to complain.....sometimes

[QUINN]

Consumers celebrate as insurance ombudsman rules in their favour:

6 May 2009
Gareth Stokes :

The 28 staff members at the office of the Ombudsman for Long-term Insurance had their work cut out for them last year. According to the 2008 Annual Report the office received 8 290 complaints, a 4.6% increase over 2007. Of the 2008 cases, 4 284 full cases were finalised, with 44% of all complaints resolved wholly or partially in favour of the complainant.

to read the full article ....http://www.fanews.co.za/article.asp?...ir_favour;6195

Apparently people are complaining more because they are increasingly finding it difficult to make ends meat.

[Dave A]

Interesting. On the plus side for the long-term insurance industry, that still leaves 56% of cases where the complainant actually didn't have valid grounds whatsoever.

[QUINN]

The worrying thing here is that over 50% of the people got the wrong advice.
In my financial planning practice I stick to risk planning.
I hate it when a bank employee calls himself a wealth planner
what the hell!!!!
If he was so good why is he working for the bank or the large insurance company.

[Dave A]

The worrying thing here is that over 50% of the people got the wrong advice.

That would be about 50% of the people who thought they had something to complain about, which one hopes is significantly less than the entire client base...

BTW, does the ombudsman do anything to take people who give bad advice out of the industry?

[QUINN]

I believe they just make a ruling it is then up to the FSB to do their own investigation and teh rule on that.......New SA, comity after comity after hearing and then a work group is formed and 3 years later still nothing ....