Meegan Johnstone, the owner of a small car hire firm, suffered fire damage to three of her eight vehicles. The insurer, a subsidiary of Lumley General Insurance, denied liability accusing her of fraud but would not say why.
She took the case to the Insurance Ombudsman. The insurer wrote to the Insurance Ombudsman asking them not to consider her claim because “their position would be prejudiced”.
The Insurance Ombudsman replied to Meegan Johnstone, saying:
“The Service has jurisdiction to deal with disputes between insurance companies and consumers with respect to personal lines general insurance. Rental car fleet insurance is not one of the insurance products that fall with the scope of the Service’s Terms of Reference”
This reply was totally untrue and was in fact a pack of lies because their Terms of Refernce DID make provision for such a small business – so why and how did such a letter come to be written?
We wrote to the then Ombudsman, Sam Parrino, but he would not reply.
We then wrote to the Panel Chair, Peter Daly, who did reply but refused to address the question.
We have now written to the new Chief Ombudsman, Colin Neave, but he too will not answer the question and instead dodges around the issue. There is no apparent reason for this claim being avoided – which of course helps the insurance company – other than that of deliberate bias to support the insurer.
This article is being copied to Colin Neave at the Financial Ombudsman Service, and we now publicly invite him to provide a genuine explanation. This is documented evidence that MUST be explained – the consumer deserves nothing less. So, Mr Neave, will you now let us have the explanation that is so long overdue?