Aimed at financial firms and professional advisers – and at consumer advice agencies – we focus each month on news from one of our three case-handling divisions: insurance, investment and banking and loans.

Welcome to the second insurance issue of ombudsman news. We were delighted to receive such a positive reaction to our January issue. Do please continue to send us your comments and suggestions.

ombudsman news covers a wide range of topics this month, starting with loan protection insurance. Complaints reaching us show that sufficient care is not always taken to ensure the suitability of policies for prospective policyholders. Restrictions which significantly limit the cover available are not always made clear before purchase, and the exclusion of claims for mental illness is something that causes us particular concern in this regard.

We also look at some of the problems caused by lack of clarity in insurers’ documents. In recent years there have been considerable improvements to policies and other literature. However, even when insurers use simple, everyday terms, they can still sometimes fail to communicate as clearly as they should do.

Other issues we discuss this month include: