FOS upholds 90% of PPI complaints

Of these complaints, 90 per cent are expected to be upheld, as complaint handling deteriorates among firms.

Emma Parker, press officer for the FOS, said: "Some firms are better than that, but the worst example at the moment is one firm where we have upheld 100 per cent of cases in recent months which is obviously quite a serious state of affairs."

The FOS is about to be audited on its figures for its annual review, but said looking at a recent snapshot, the standard of complaint handling had deteriorated within a number of the larger firms.

Parker said: "When we originally did our forecast we were not expecting to see the quality that we have done, compared to last financial year we are looking at three time increase in the number of cases."

The FOS made an application to the FSA in July 2008 about the wider implications of the PPI market, asking for a review of consumers who may be too disadvantaged to complain to the ombudsman.

Parker added: "Because with this number of cases on the same issue, where some firms are being quite productive in the way they are handling them, there is obviously a lot of consumers out there who may be disadvantaged and not complaining to the ombudsman service."

On a more positive note, however, complaints to the FOS on products such as health protection and income protection, have decreased.

"In terms on some of the long term health and income protection products, we have been really pleased to see that although there has been a general trend upwards in most insurance investment and banking complaints, some areas around protection have actually decreased which is great news," Parker added.