Ruling worth nearly R200m went against life insurers
‘Statistics … only tell half the story, and sometimes the detail and attention given in each case is worth talking about’
Life insurers were required to pay R193.3m in 2017 to their customers in rulings by the industry’s alternative dispute resolution service, the Ombudsman for Long-term Insurance (OLTI) says. Nearly half of the complaints were about claims denied by insurers. The next most common complaint was about poor service, resulting in life insurers being ordered to pay compensation totalling R531,429 to 150 complainants. "The 5,435 chargeable complaints we received in 2017 were marginally higher than the 5,284 we received in 2016, but very much in line with the small increases in numbers we have received over the past two years," long-term insurance ombudsman Ron McLaren said in a media release on Tuesday announcing the office’s 2017 annual report. Of the cases handled by the OLTI office, 85% were finalised within six months, and 29% were resolved wholly or partially in favour of complainants. "We managed to close 3,371 full cases of the 4,336 we considered during the year, despite the challen...
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