U K Insurance Limited · DRN-6008037

The complaint Mr D complains that U K Insurance Limited trading as Darwin, failed to deal with a claim on his motor insurance promptly which resulted in his premiums being increased unfairly when the claim was recorded as fault for longer than it should have been. What happened Mr D was involved in an incident in 2022. It took Darwin sometime to confirm Mr D was not at fault and the delay meant the claim was recorded as fault and impacted the premiums it charged at renewal. This also impacted the number of years no claims discount (NCD) Mr D had in place and he feels this has impacted the cost of his premium when moving to a new insurer. Darwin accepted the claim details should have been updated to non-fault and it recalculated the previous premiums to make sure Mr D had been charged fairly during this period. It said a refund was due and a payment of £259.91 was paid which represented the amount Mr D had been overcharged with the claim being recorded incorrectly. Our investigator looked at this complaint and didn’t think Darwin had gone far enough to put things right. They were unable to confirm if the price of Mr D’s insurance now had been affected by the delays and the NCD he was able to declare. But he was satisfied Darwin had failed in its duty to progress claims fairly as set out in the Insurance Code of Business Sourcebook (ICOBS). The investigator said they could see there was a period of around a year where no action was taken by Darwin. The claim was updated on the Claims Underwriting Exchange (CUE) database in December 2023 as non-fault, around 2 months after the claim started to progress again and Darwin was unable to explain the reason for the delay prior to this. So, to recognise the added distress and inconvenience of this situation to Mr D, our investigator asked that Darwin pay £200, in addition to the refund of the premiums already paid. They didn’t think they could ask Darwin to pay Mr D what he believed is an unfair increase in the current cost of his insurance, as he couldn’t see this was inflated because of the NCD or the impact of the claim. Darwin accepted the proposed outcome and agreed to make the payment of £200 to Mr D for the distress and inconvenience. Mr D didn’t accept. He felt the call to Darwin when he needed to ask it to correct his NCD because this had been recorded incorrectly, demonstrated it was causing his premiums to increase now. He was aware the 3rd party insurer had admitted liability for the claim within around 6 months of the claim incident, as another linked claim had been resolved around this time. He felt this supported that Darwin had delayed things and missed the facts and he has lost out as a result with increased premiums and additional time spent chasing Darwin.

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Our investigators opinion remained unchanged. They said they couldn’t determine if the new insurers price would have been reduced, had the NCD been updated sooner – from the information available, this showed as being allowed from December 2023. And they’d made a recommendation to reflect the additioanl distress of the situation on top of the refund of premiums made by Darwin, which they felt was a fair way to resolve the complaint. 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’ve decided to uphold this complaint inline with the recommendation of our investigator. I appreciate this doesn’t cover everything Mr D is hoping for, but I’ll explain why I think this is a fair outcome. It is not disputed that Darwin delayed the progress of this claim and the way it recorded this on its system had an impact on the cost of Mr D’s premium. It has demonstrated what the premium would have been in 2022 and 2023 had it recorded the claim as non-fault and allowed the increased NCD and refunded the difference here as I’d expect. Mr D has said his new insurer has increased the cost of his policy because it said the NCD and number of years applied was reduced after he called to take the policy out. Darwin provided him with an updated NCD certificate which confirmed he has 12 years NCD and Mr D was asked to notify his new insurer of the change and see if it could amend the premium. Understand Mr D doesn’t think this is fair and he only needs to arrange this because of Darwins failings previously. But Mr D has been provided with the updated NCD certificate which will allow him to ask his new insurer to confirm whether the price it has offered the insurance for will reduce as a result. If it says this is the case and reduces the cost of the policy, there is no financial impact and the compensation recommended is in place to recognise the additional distress and inconvenience Mr D has experienced when dealing with this claim which goes beyond what you’d normally expect. If Mr D’s new insurer confirms the price would have been lower at inception and refuses to provide a refund of any difference, it will demonstrate an additional financial loss. If this is the case, Mr D would need to demonstrate this to Darwin and I’d expect it to consider this cost. But based on what has been demonstrated so far and the actions of Darwin to provide the new NCD certificate, I don’t think it needs to do anything else. With the refund for the increased premiums having been made by Darwin already, the only question is whether the amount of £200 is fair to recognise the distress and inconvenience. Overall, I think this is a fair award. The primary impact of Darwin not progressing and recording the claim correctly was the increase in Mr D’s premiums, which has been addressed with the refund. He has needed to spend time dealing with Darwin to sort the issues and some inconvenience is always expected when things go wrong. But I think £200 as an award for the distress and inconvenience is a fair award and is in line with this Services approach. Putting things right To recognise the impact of Darwins failings with the progress and recording of the claim on Mr D, it should pay him £200 for the distress and inconvenience.

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My final decision For the reasons I’ve explained above, I uphold Mr D’s complaint. Under the rules of the Financial Ombudsman Service, I’m required to ask Mr D to accept or reject my decision before 6 April 2026. Thomas Brissenden Ombudsman

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