Aviva Insurance Limited · DRN-6262926

The complaint Mr M complains that his motor insurer, Aviva Insurance Limited, failed to take appropriate action to progress his claim after it was referred to solicitors to pursue through the court. All references to Aviva include its agents. What happened I issued a provisional decision regarding this complaint earlier this month. In that decision I said I was considering upholding the complaint and awarding Mr M £300 compensation. An extract from that decision follows: “In January 2023 Mr M was involved in a road traffic accident. He said he was parked when a third-party vehicle drove into his passenger door which was slightly open at the time. He then made a claim on his policy with Aviva. Aviva tried to pursue the matter with the third-party insurer but as there was no admission of liability, it passed the matter to solicitors (‘H’) to pursue in court. The solicitors were seeking to recover its outlay and Mr M’s excess which is an uninsured loss. Mr M had been dissatisfied with the lack of progress made by the solicitors for some time. He first complained to Aviva in February 2024, and in March 2024 Aviva acknowledged there had been failings and offered him £150 in compensation, which he accepted. Mr M raised a further complaint in January 2025 after there was still no progress made by the solicitors. Aviva responded to Mr M’s complaint in April 2025 and upheld it but didn’t award any compensation. It said that it had contacted H who said it had submitted papers to court in April 2024 but there was a backlog which meant it hadn’t heard back. Aviva said that it was awaiting further updates from H and apologised for the lack of communication. It said the best course of action would be to refer Mr M to our service. Mr M then brought his complaint to our service. He said that he still hadn’t recovered his excess and that his premiums had increased due to this claim remaining open. He said the solicitors accepted that the original handler effectively “abandoned” the file before it was allocated to a new handler and blamed delays on the court. Mr M didn’t think this was correct and said a family member’s claim progressed much faster than his. He said Aviva failed to effectively oversee the work done by the solicitors. He asked for Aviva to refund his £350 excess as well as any unjustified increase in his premium. He also asked for compensation for the distress and inconvenience he experienced and for someone senior to take over and give him a clear timeline as to when the claim will be resolved.

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Mr M also raised a separate complaint with H. H responded shortly after he brought his complaint against Aviva to our service in October 2025. It explained that, after the pleadings were sent to court in April 2024, the original handler left the firm and the case was reassigned to a new handler. H said the court hadn’t replied to its requests for updates or confirmed receipt of the court papers. It acknowledged there had been shortcomings in progressing the claim, including a period of inactivity following the original handler’s departure. H added that it still wasn’t aware whether the court had issued the papers. It offered Mr M £200 compensation and said it would re-print and re-send the proceedings to the court. One of our investigators reviewed the complaint but didn’t think Aviva had to take further action. He said that as the matter had been passed to solicitors, it was for them to progress and that Aviva’s role was limited from that point forward. Our investigator added that Mr M would only be able to get his excess back if liability was decided in his favour. Our investigator referred Mr M to H themselves and to the Legal Ombudsman. He also explained it is not unusual for premiums to increase while a claim is open and if liability is resolved in his favour, Mr M should ask Aviva to recalculate those. Mr M didn’t agree and asked for an ombudsman’s decision. He said that Aviva failed to maintain an effective oversight framework for its outsourced provider and that it was responsible for H’s actions as it was acting as Aviva’s agent. He added that because Aviva failed to provide an internal contact for escalation, despite his requests, this led to a failure by H which went undetected for 24 months. He added that a family member’s personal injury claim had been missed by H and that the limitation period was close to expiring. While the complaint was with our service, Mr M said that the legal claim was settled as “non- fault” in January 2026. He asked for his premium to be recalculated in light of this and also for interest to be added to his excess because of the delay in recovering it. The matter was then passed to me to decide. What I’ve provisionally decided – and why I’ve considered all the available evidence and arguments to decide what’s fair and reasonable in the circumstances of this complaint. I’d like to begin by acknowledging that Mr M feels strongly that Aviva should have taken a more active role in progressing his claim, and he has raised a number of arguments and points for me to consider. I would like to reassure him that I have carefully considered all of these. However, my decision will focus on the issues I consider most relevant. I mean no discourtesy by this; our aim is for our decisions to be clear, concise, and focused. I’d also like to clarify that in this decision I am considering events that happened after Aviva’s March 2024 final response letter and until the final response it issued in relation to the present complaint in April 2025. Mr M said that the claim has now been settled as non-fault but as this happened after Aviva’s final response to this complaint, it isn’t something I can consider as part of this

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decision. For the same reason I am not able to consider his complaint that his family member’s personal injury claim was missed by H, though this is something he should also consider complaining to H about if he hasn’t already. Mr M said he wants Aviva to recalculate his premiums in light of the claim being “non-fault” and this is something he can raise with it directly now. If he isn’t happy with its response, he can then bring the complaint to our service. In January 2025 Mr M wrote to Aviva and said there were still delays in H progressing the legal claim. He said he had received no updates since March 2024 from H or Aviva. He said he asked H for an update in November 2024 and it said the original handler had abandoned the file and was replaced with another handler. He added that his policy was coming up for renewal and that it had already increased by 30% since the last renewal and expected it to increase further. Aviva got in touch with H in January 2025 who said that papers had been sent to court in April 2024 but it had received no update from the court since. Aviva asked H to chase the court as it seemed a long time to wait. Aviva called H again in April 2025 after speaking with Mr M. H told Aviva it had chased the court the previous month and was due to chase again and that it would update Mr M. The crux of the complaint is that Mr M feels that Aviva failed in its role to oversee H’s work and to ensure that the court claim was progressing at good pace. Mr M says that Aviva was responsible for H’s actions, and in my view he is correct insofar as those actions relate to the performance of the insurance contract. This would include situations where the solicitors caused unnecessary delays. However, I don’t consider Aviva responsible for matters that concern the running of the legal claim itself. For example, I wouldn’t hold Aviva accountable for any negligence by the solicitors in conducting the legal proceedings. That is something the insured can pursue directly with the solicitors. In this case, H accepted that there had been unnecessary delays. It said there was a period of inaction after the initial handler left in April 2024. I also consider that H should have contemplated resending the papers to the court after not receiving a response within a few months, and I consider anything longer to have been objectively excessive, even accounting for a backlog. Instead, it appears this was not considered for around a year and a half— given that the papers were first sent in April 2024 and H did not consider resending them until October 2025. I think this resulted in unnecessary and avoidable delays, which caused Mr M distress and inconvenience, prolonged the settlement of the claim, and had knock-on effects such as leaving his claim open for longer and impacting his premiums. In my view, H should have taken more decisive action within a few months—six at most, even accounting for the court backlog. On that basis, I think action should have been taken by October 2024. In addition to H’s actions, I also don’t think it would be reasonable to expect Aviva to abandon the claim entirely once it had been passed to solicitors. We would expect Aviva to become involved in certain circumstances, including when Mr M raised concerns about the solicitors or about delays in progressing the case. From what I have seen, Aviva did engage with H and raised Mr M’s concerns directly, but it did so only when these concerns were brought to its attention by Mr M.

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Mr M said he did not believe there was a court backlog because a family member’s claim progressed much more quickly. Aviva discussed this with H, who advised that the delays were due to the pandemic. From what I have seen, Aviva pointed out to H that the delays appeared excessively long even accounting for a backlog and urged H to contact the court for an update. I consider this to have been fair and reasonable. However, by that point— January 2025—Aviva had become aware that two years had passed since the incident and the solicitors had made little, if any, progress. In my view, Aviva should have monitored the solicitors’ progress more closely. This did not happen, and instead it was left to Mr M to continue liaising with H and to raise further complaints. Overall, I think there were failings both on H’s behalf—failings for which I consider Aviva to be responsible, such as the delay in reissuing the court papers—as well as failings by Aviva in not adequately monitoring the progress of the court case, despite being aware of the significant delays. As I am considering events between March 2024 and April 2025 for the purposes of this decision, I consider £300 compensation to be in line with awards we would make in similar circumstances.” Aviva accepted my provisional decision and so did Mr M though he raised some additional points he wanted me to consider. They included the following: • H recently settled the interest on his recovered damages and this came to £59.27. Mr M said he doesn’t feel this amount reflects the impact of the delay he experienced and is well short of the 8% (our service would ordinarily award). • He would like me to direct Aviva to refund any additional premium he was charged during the period of delay and to provide a written breakdown of its calculations. Mr M said he’d like to know what his premium would have been had the claim been closed as non-fault in October 2024. • He would like confirmation that the Claims and Underwriting Exchange (CUE) and his no claims discount (NCD) have been updated to reflect the fact that the claim was “non- fault”. What I’ve decided – and why I’ve considered all the available evidence and arguments to decide what’s fair and reasonable in the circumstances of this complaint. I’m grateful to both parties for their responses and comments. I have considered Mr M’s additional points, nevertheless, as these relate to matters which took place after April 2025, I am unfortunately not able to consider them in this decision. As I explained in my provisional decision, Mr M may now ask Aviva to recalculate his premiums, given his understanding that the claim has since been settled on a “non-fault” basis. He may also ask Aviva to confirm that CUE and his NCD have been updated accordingly, as would ordinarily be expected if Aviva has recovered its outlay in full. If he is dissatisfied with Aviva’s response, he may raise a new complaint and bring the matter to our service.

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Mr M has also asked Aviva to confirm what his premium would have been had the claim been closed as non-fault by October 2024. To clarify, in my provisional decision I said that the solicitors should have resent the court papers by October 2024; I did not indicate that the claim would necessarily have been closed or settled by that point. The rest of my findings remain the same as the findings I made in my provisional decision and are now the findings of this, my final decision. My final decision For the reasons above, I have decided to uphold this complaint. Aviva Insurance Limited must pay Mr M £300 compensation for the distress and inconvenience it caused him. Aviva Insurance Limited must pay the compensation within 28 days of the date on which we tell it Mr M accepts my final decision. If it pays later than this it must also pay interest on it from the deadline date for settlement to the date of payment at 8% a year simple. If Aviva Insurance Limited considers that it’s required by HM Revenue & Customs to deduct income tax from that interest, it should tell Mr M how much it’s taken off. It should also give Mr M a tax deduction certificate if he asks for one so he can reclaim the tax from HM Revenue & Customs if appropriate. Under the rules of the Financial Ombudsman Service, I’m required to ask Mr M to accept or reject my decision before 28 April 2026. Anastasia Serdari Ombudsman

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