General Insurance Article - CMA reforms a 'missed opportunity' according to Covéa

 Covéa Insurance’s Claims Director, Adrian Furness, believes that the recent CMA ruling on practices in the motor insurance market, which was intended to improve the way the market operates and benefit consumers, was a ‘missed opportunity’.

 Adrian explains:

 “This is a really disappointing outcome and represents a missed opportunity to remove some of the dysfunctional elements of the motor insurance market. In particular, the failure to ban referral fees for credit hire is perverse, given the banning of referral fees for injuries under the LASPO reforms.

 In addition, the failure to reform both the process and the excessive cost of replacement vehicles, sourced under a credit agreement, will continue to encourage the wrong behaviours and result in additional costs being passed on to the customer in the form of higher insurance premiums.

 Finally, the complete failure to address subrogation now legitimises the practice of claiming back costs that are higher than the actual cost of repair. In doing so, I expect that not only have the CMA maintained the status quo, but the unintended consequence is that they have given free reign for others to maximise margins. Again the result is that costs will increase which inevitably means higher insurance premiums.?This study has cost the taxpayer a significant amount of money and you really have to question what have they received in return.”?