More to be done to curb rip-offs by banks and insurance companies

If there is something South Africans love to moan about, it is the battles they have with companies in the financial services sector.

Banks and insurance companies, both of which constitute “grudge” purchases, are the main culprits.

Now, the National Financial Ombud Scheme’s report – just for the period between March and December last year – shows that we’re not imagining the poor treatment which gets doled out to us by these institutions.

In those 10 months, consumers had a staggering R328 million extracted unfairly from them. That is almost a shocking R1 million a day that saw money going to these enterprises by unfair means.

It was life insurance where the ombuds scored the biggest gains for policy holders, recovering just under R203 million for them.

Short-term insurance was the next biggest culprit, with R94 million being returned to policy holders for unfair decisions by insurers. By comparison, banks did reasonably well, racking up just over R29 million in money returned to their clients for various wrongdoings.

The credit sector looks good with just over R2 million returned to its customers after disputes.

Ombuds say the companies are improving their service and systems… but clearly a lot still needs to be done.

NOW READ: Ombud gets R328 million back for disgruntled financial consumers