Compensation

If a claims management company (CMC) has made a mistake and you’ve lost out as a result, we have the power to put things right. Usually, we’ll tell them to put you back in the position you’d be in if they hadn’t got things wrong.

There are a number of things we can tell a CMC to do to put things right. These include:

• paying you money for financial loss
• putting things right in a way that doesn’t involve paying money
• paying you money to recognise the impact of what went wrong

We can also tell a CMC to pay interest on our awards, and in rare circumstances, pay costs.

Where you’ve lost out financially, we can tell the CMC to pay you money directly to put things right. That might mean awarding you a specific amount, or telling the CMC how to calculate the amount you should receive.

There are limits to the amount of compensation we can award. If we think that compensation should be higher than our award limit we can recommend that the CMC pays more. But we can't make them pay anything over the limit. It's up to them whether they pay any extra or not. 

Find out more about how we can award compensation for financial loss.

A CMCs mistake can affect you practically or emotionally, not just financially. For this reason, the rules we follow say that we can award fair compensation to recognise other types of impact, for example the distress, inconvenience or other practical problems caused by the dispute.

Find out more about when we award compensation for distress or inconvenience.

We may decide the CMC should also pay you interest on top of compensation.

If so, we’d expect the CMC to calculate the number of days you didn’t have the money, and apply interest to the amount they refund you. In complaints referred to us:

• from 1 January 2026, we typically ask financial businesses to calculate this using a time-weighted average of the Bank of England base rate plus one percentage point
• before 1 January 2026, we typically ask financial businesses to use a rate of interest at 8% simple a year.

If we think a different interest rate should be used, we’ll explain why.

The CMC may have to take off tax from the interest award.

If you accept an ombudsman’s decision and the CMC doesn’t pay in time, we can award additional interest until they make the payment.

We might decide a CMC needs to put things right in a way that doesn’t involve paying money. For example, if your complaint to us is that the CMC hasn’t kept you updated on an ongoing claim, we may direct the CMC to provide regular updates from now on.  

If you accept an award we make, it’s unlikely you’ll be able to take the CMC to court for more compensation later. We can’t give you legal advice about this, so you’ll need to speak to a lawyer or another advice professional if that’s something you’re considering.

There are time limits on taking a case to court, and these continue to run while we handle your case. Again, you should check with a lawyer if this is relevant to you.