ADVISORY COLUMN: INSURANCE HELPLINE
The staff in the Financial Services Commission’s insurance division and its leaders earned applause last week.
They have started a process to modernise the ways in which the $107 billion insurance industry that they regulate transacts business with consumers.
The changes, which were predicted in my column ‘Finally, Insurance Reform with Upsides for Consumers’ last September, were overdue.
In the words of one company executive who was speaking about his industry, it is “moving forward at a rapid rate”.
The daily, consumer-facing actions of insurers and intermediaries − brokers and agents – for the most part, are out of step with 21st-century ideas about how businesses should treat customers.
Making money – no matter what – is the hidden motto. Treating customers unfairly is the reality, as was shown in T.M.’s recent interactions with his broker in last week’s column.
Few persons will visit the regulator’s website – www.fscjamaica.org/regulated-industries/content-1229.html – to read the 13-page document ‘Market Conduct for Insurance Companies and intermediaries’.
Today’s article will highlight parts of the FSC’s new rules about how consumers should be treated.
Also, publication of the rules is only one part of the process to change how consumers are treated. The protocols will only be effective if buyers and policyholders familiarise themselves with the procedures and make demands for improvements when service delivery is sub-par.
Filing written complaints with the insurer, intermediary and regulator, when all other measures to seek redress fail – excluding the appointment of an attorney – is another important set of actions that consumers can take.
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