Motor insurance continues to be the most complained-about business line with 12,860 complaints over the course of 2025 – equal to almost a third (32%) of all cases referred to the ombudsman last year.
This is, however, a drop of 15.5% – the largest drop in referrals across all business lines with more than 300 complaints in 2025.
This means that motor complaint volumes have now fallen in five of the last six quarters following a surge of complaints in 2023 that saw complaints rise to an annual peak of a little under 16,000.
Motor insurers also reported an improved upheld rate for 2025, with the FOS finding in favour of the customer in 36.5% of cases in 2025, compared to 43.0% in 2024.
The second most complained about business line is buildings insurance, with 6,982 complaints referred to the FOS in 2025, down from 7,304 in 2024, a reduction of 4.4% – although the business line still accounts for more than 17% of all complaints.
Meanwhile, third on the list is travel insurance with 4,553 complaints. This is an increase of 18.9% on the 3,828 cases reaching the ombudsman in 2024, making travel insurance one of just two products in the most complained about business lines to report growing complaint volumes last year.
Indeed, the 18.9% increase in travel complaints is the second highest increase across all business lines, behind jewellery insurance , which received just 23 complaints in 2025.
The rise in travel complaints also comes amid heightened scrutiny of customer outcomes in the sector following last year’s Which? super-complaint to the FCA.
The consumer group argued that both travel and home insurance markets are delivering “systemically poor outcomes”, particularly when customers attempt to make a claim. Which? cited concerns around claims decisions, policy wording and the way some insurers handle disputes with policyholders.
While the FCA has acknowledged the concerns raised in the complaint, it stopped short of launching a full market investigation. Instead, the regulator said it would assess the issues raised through its existing supervisory work and ongoing monitoring of insurers’ compliance with Consumer Duty.
Pet insurance has also attracted significant attention, with rising veterinary costs and increasingly complex policy structures often cited as contributing factors behind disputes in the market of late, but complaints turned a corner by falling by 4.5% to 2,072 in 2025 after peaking at 2,169 the previous year.
Indeed, the final quarter of 2025 experienced a 33% drop in complaint volumes – the biggest year-on-year decrease of the last five years – with the pet insurance market benefitting from two consecutive quarters of falling volumes.
Despite this, pet insurance complaints have the second highest upheld rate across the UKGI marketplace at 45% – just 0.5 percentage points behind the worst-offending business line, commercial property insurance.
Rounding off the list of the most complained about business lines in UKGI is private medical and dental insurance with 1,770 cases referred to the FOS in 2025, up from 1,750 over the course of 2024.
The business line’s upheld rate, however, is considerably better than the products at the top end of the complaints league table, with just 23% of cases found in favour of the customer in 2025.
This is the third lowest upheld rate in the whole of UKGI, just behind personal accident insurance (22.9%) and commercial legal expenses (20.7%).
How Insurance DataLab Can Help
Insurance DataLab’s market intelligence platform tracks quarterly FOS complaint volumes and upheld rates, broken down by insurer, product line and complaint type. Combined with our wider insights on claims performance and customer experience, this enables firms to benchmark performance, identify emerging risks and evidence good customer outcomes.
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