Complaints drop as firms take policyholders more seriously
The Insurance Claims Complaints Board (ICCB) received fewer complaints last year than in 1996, reflecting a more serious attitude of insurers towards policyholder complaints, the board's chairman Henry Wong Wei-chow said yesterday.
Set up in 1990, the ICCB aims to provide independent adjudication of complaints between insurers and policyholders. Nearly all insurers in Hong Kong are ICCB members and are obliged to follow its decisions.
Mr Wong yesterday said that for the year to December, it had dealt with 128 complaints, down from 142 complaints in 1996.
Of the 128 cases, 106 were completed with settlements worth a total of $2.6 million, a 170 per cent increase over 1996.
The highest award in a single case came to $520,000.
'The decrease in the number of complaints may be due to the fact that insurers are more serious in dealing with claims of policyholders, in a bid to avoid complaints going to the ICCB,' Mr Wong said.
The representative of the General Insurance Council (GIC) on the ICCB, Peter Dunn, said he agreed that more policyholders were aware of the existence of the board.
'All insurers will be careful to make sure that their claims payment is done in a proper manner to secure their reputation,' he said.
About 42 complaint cases last year related to the interpretation of policy terms, 32 cases to non-disclosure of material facts, 14 to breach of warranty or condition, 12 to value of indemnity and 28 cases to other factors.
Of the 28 cases in the 'others' category, 14 were connected with undue delay in claim settlement.
Mr Dunn attributed some delays to the difficulties faced by insurers in getting medical or police reports to handle the claims.
In terms of type of policies, 37 complaints related to life insurance, 23 cases to motor insurance and 11 to travel insurance.
Mr Wong said motor insurance complaints usually related to misconceptions among policyholders about the extent to which their insurance covered the loss of their vehicles.
Mr Wong said a proposal had been made to the GIC to introduce a new concept used in Europe where motor insurance does not describe the estimated value of the insured vehicle but only mentions its model and age.
Mr Dunn said overseas experience had shown that this method could reduce misunderstandings among policyholders.
