After the global issues caused by the ill-fated Windows update, there was “widespread pricing and quotability disruption”, according to Consumer Intelligence.
This included advertised price increases for 17 home insurance brands, with one example showing an average premium increase of between 32% and 65% for a policy. For one insurer, there was an annual rise of £439.
The cause of the wildly differing price hikes came due to the “disappearance of key underwriters” amid the IT chaos that disrupted up to eight-and-a-half million people across the world.
While the home insurance prices appeared to settle down the day after, the long-term impact of the price fluctuations is still unclear. At the other end of the scale, some insurers had their prices dip, but a couple of days later returned to normal.
Meanwhile, there were 25 motor insurance brands that increased prices on 19 July. The surge in pricing was put down to “a result of manual registration searches resulting from look-up searches”.
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Another factor was caused by the same lack of key underwriters available, which impacted the home insurance sector.
One area of insurance companies that suffered was the communication provided to customers – live online chat facilities and contact centres set up to help you select the best policy were hit.
However, unlike the pricing, this is a problem that still dogs many firms. This could cause ongoing frustration for customers, warns Consumer Intelligence.
Experts are monitoring the situation
Ian Hughes, chief executive of Consumer Intelligence, said: “We have been monitoring the situation to help build an understanding of the impact on the general insurance industry.
“Notable disruptions seen on Friday include registration look-up failures, underwriting changes causing huge price increases, and significant drops in quotability for a number of brands.”
Elsewhere, if you were a traveller who experienced a cancelled flight following the CrowdStrike software being hacked, you can check your rights here.
