Ombudservice busy in first six months

The new ombudservice for p&c insurers received 37,000 calls between July and December of last year. Fortuntaly for insurers, only 17 of those calls have proceeded to mediation, reports the General Insurance Ombudservice (GIO).The GIO was created last year, and started operation in July, as a national service to field consumer complaints and questions regarding private insurers. Its board of directors held their first meeting this week to review the first year of operation and look at fine-tuning the GIO’s bylaws, communications activities and planning for the future.But the first six months have shown the program works, says GIO chair Lea Algar. “The GIO is proving to be an efficient and impartial way to reconcile disputes between insurers and their customers. Consumer services officers have helped many policyholders to solve their problems even before they escalated to the point of activating the formal mediation process.”