During May 2014 the Ombudsman for Short-Term Insurance (OSTI) released his report for the 2013 calendar year. The OSTI is an independent body that offers dispute resolution between insurers and their clients. This is the second year in which the OSTI has made public the number of complaints received per insurer together with the number of complaints overturned with some benefit to the complainant.
At OUTsurance we view our responsibility to pay claims promptly and fairly as the most important thing we do. When looking at the rate at which claims are referred to the OSTI for review, we are extremely proud to have maintained a referral rate well below the industry average as we did in 2012. We furthermore achieved a significant improvement (from 23.2% in 2012 to 14.0% in 2013) in our overturned rate.
The OSTI only overturned 3.6 claims per every 10,000 finalised by OUTsurance, which was the second lowest recorded amongst typical short-term insurers as displayed below:
The full details of the OSTI results can be found on pages 16 and 17 of the 2013 OSTI Annual Report, and can be downloaded at www.osti.co.za under the ‘publications’ tab.