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Insurance Sales

The FSA have looked at 43 companies since September last year. All those included were sent a questionnaire and the FSA listened to sales calls at 19 firms. A total of 260 calls were monitored and visits were made to 10 companies.

Following this work the FSA reported that cold calling standards need to improve to ensure that there is no danger of customers receiving unfair treatment. The selling of policies for personal accident, health and sickness insurance was of particular concern.

The FSA said that salesmen must make sure that potential customers are fully informed regarding the type of policy, and any restrictions must be made clear. Consumers should never feel that they have been put under any pressure to make a rushed decision.

The FSA has also noted that if a customer approached the company first then in general standards were good. However, exclusions and limitations could still be explained more clearly in some cases. Insurance companies are already taking action to improve their sales procedures in response to the issues highlighted by the FSA.

This latest warning to the insurance industry follows previous action to stop unfair clauses in payment protection insurance policies, and to withdraw adverts which make exaggerated claims.