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Compensation for distress or inconvenience

We understand that a claims management company’s mistake could affect you practically or emotionally, as well as financially. The information on this page is intended to help customers of CMCs understand our approach to awards where the impact isn't financial – and the mistake has caused distress or inconvenience.

Last updated: 15 July 2022
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On this page

  1. When we might award compensation
  2. When we might not award compensation
  3. What we take into account
  4. Compensation for limited companies, sole traders and partnerships

If you’ve lost out financially, we’ll look to put you back into the position you would have been in if the claims management company (CMC) hadn’t got it wrong.

But we understand that a CMC’s mistake can affect you practically or emotionally, as well as financially. For this reason, we can award compensation if you’ve experienced any of the following:

  • unnecessary distress
  • inconvenience or loss of your time
  • pain or suffering
  • damage to your reputation

When we might award compensation

It can be stressful when things go wrong. If we think a CMC hasn’t treated you fairly, we’ll look at the impact this has had on you – not just how you lost out financially.

We’ll consider whether compensation is appropriate in each case. Some people don’t want to talk about distressing issues and they might understate the problems it has caused for them. Others are happy to share the details of their experience.

So we listen carefully to both sides, looking at the facts and evidence when assessing the impact, to decide what’s fair.

When we might not award compensation

There needs to be more than just a minor inconvenience or upset. For example, we’re unlikely to award compensation for minor delays due to a CMC’s phone line being busy.

We also don’t compensate for events that happened outside of the CMC’s control. For example, if your claim against a financial business took a long time – and that wasn’t down to your CMC – then we wouldn’t tell your CMC to compensate you for that delay.

What we take into account

We look at everything that’s happened and then assess what would be fair compensation overall.

The same mistake could have a different impact on different people. So we might award different amounts in similar cases.

When we look at inconvenience and loss of your time, we may ask for evidence of how much time you’ve spent. We don’t make awards based on units of time, but instead we look at the overall impact the CMC’s mistake had on you.

We might also ask for supporting information, for example, if you tell us it had a significant impact on your health.

We also take into account whether there was anything you could have done to reduce the impact of a CMC’s mistake on you. If we agree there were steps you could have taken, we might decide it’s fair for a CMC to pay less compensation.

We don’t normally pay compensation to someone else complaining on your behalf, for example, a family member or solicitor.

Compensation for limited companies, sole traders and partnerships

You may want to make a complaint to us if your limited company has been inconvenienced. We can award compensation for this. But the company itself can’t be ‘distressed’ or 'upset' so we wouldn’t award compensation for this.

The compensation can only be paid to the company itself, not you or anyone else personally as a shareholder or director.

However, if you’re a sole trader or a partner in a partnership, you can make a complaint about something that’s affected your business. You can generally be awarded compensation personally.