Guardian Assurance plc
Company : Guardian Assurance plc, Guardian Linked Life Assurance Ltd
Fine Amount: £750,000
Date: January 12th 2006
Guardian Assurance was fined £750k by the FSA for ’serious systemic flaws’ in its handling of mortgage endowment complaints.
Following the introduction of new complaints handling procedures in January 2003, 5,600 customers had their complaints rejected. The FSA found that the new procedures were neither adequate nor effective, meaning that those customers were put at risk of financial loss.
The FSA said that Guardian knew that the new procedures would result in more complaints being rejected, but when the rate of upheld endowment complaints fell from 71% to just 22.6% Guardian still failed to identify the problems in their system.
The situation continued until the matter came to the FSA’s attention during a visit in late 2004.
Guardian committed themselves to reviewing all rejected complaints in the period, and to remedying any financial loss caused by the defective procedures. The FSA said that this fact had been taken into account when setting the level of the fine, without which it would have been substantially higher.