In the last 12 months the number of complaints made to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) about the way insurers deal with weather related claims has risen greatly.
The past year has seen record levels of flooding, an earthquake and now severe gales which has meant that insurers have been inundated with claims running into billions of pounds of damage. £3bn was the total cost of last summer’s floods to the insurance industry, the earthquake earlier in the year cost £30m and according to the Association of British Insurers (ABI) the storms will rack up a cost of £350m to insurers.

The buildings part of home insurance has historically been a stable area, in the two financial years leading up to April 2007, the FOS, an independent body for solving disputes between businesses offering financial services and their customers, there was no increase in the number of complaints. In the last year this figure has risen by 32%, with relation to storms the major bone of contention is repairs rather than an entire claim being refused.