The FCA has published Thematic Review 16/8: Packaged bank accounts (TR16/8). TR16/8 sets out the FCA’s findings on packaged bank accounts, assessing how firms implemented the packaged bank account rules in the Insurance Conduct of Business Sourcebook (ICOBS) that the FCA introduced in 2013. The rules require firms to establish and record customers’ eligibility to claim on the insurance policies in their packaged bank account and to send customers annual eligibility statements prompting them to review their eligibility. The FCA also tested whether customers who complained about their packaged bank account received fair outcomes.
The FCA’s key findings include the following:
- checking eligibility. The FCA’s mystery shopping exercise suggests that the ICOBS rules have raised standards in the market. However, the exercise also showed that firms were not consistently checking eligibility for every type of insurance in the package;
- annual eligibility statements. Firms were broadly complying with the FCA rules, but there was room for improvement in designing the statements in a way that increases the likelihood of customers engagement; and
- complaint handling. Firms have more work to do on sales and complaints handling, as the review found that they did not consistently deliver fair outcomes for those customers who complained that their package bank account was missold.
In terms of next steps, the FCA will review an additional sample of mi-sale complaints that firms received between March and May 2016 to test whether they have improved the quality of their packaged bank account complaints handling. The FCA will also hold a roundtable with firms that sell packaged bank accounts to confirm its expectations in relation to how firms check and record eligibility.
View FCA findings from thematic review of packaged bank accounts, 20 October 2016
