Consumer trust in UK insurance providers has risen across most lines, with car and travel insurance posting higher scores in the latest Trust in Insurance Index from Fairer Finance, suggesting the sector is climbing back from a multi-year low even as scores remain shy of their 2023 peak.
Softening prices appear to be a factor. Car insurance premiums fell 9% year-on-year in February 2026, according to the Confused.com Price Index, easing pressure that has weighed on sentiment since 2022.
Pet and home insurance trust scores held steady, while travel extended its upward run after several years as an outlier. Even so, scores across all sectors sit below the Spring 2023 peak, and the gap between top and bottom performers points to an uneven recovery.
The Spring 2026 Index, based on responses from 10,000 customers, also found claims satisfaction at its highest level since 2019. The average score across car, home, pet and travel reached 60.03%, recovering from a Spring 2024 trough of 51%.
Travel insurance posted the largest jump, rising from 53.70% in Autumn 2025 to 59.11%. Pet insurance continues to lead all sectors on claims satisfaction.
The findings broadly track other sentiment readings. The Chartered Insurance Institute's Public Trust Index recorded overall consumer satisfaction of 86% in Q1 2026, the highest reading since the index began, with travel insurance satisfaction reaching a record 86%. SME satisfaction climbed to a seven-year high of 84%.
Consumer Intelligence research separately points to claims satisfaction recovering to 8.1 out of 10 in 2025 for both home and motor, up from 7.9 and 7.8 respectively in 2024, though the firm notes scores remain below the 2018 peak of 8.6.
James Daley (pictured above), managing director of Fairer Finance, said: "This is an encouraging set of results." Daley said trust is moving in the right direction and that claims satisfaction has improved across all four sectors following additional scrutiny from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).
That scrutiny has been building. In July 2025, the FCA published a package of retail insurance reports, having previously found shortcomings in claims handling at some general insurance firms.
In a more recent intervention this past December, the regulator accepted core elements of a Which? super-complaint submitted in September 2025, which alleged significant consumer harm in home and travel insurance and was based on analysis of nine policy wordings and 3,322 survey responses.
The FCA has expanded its workplan and is set to share findings from new supervisory workstreams before the end of 2026.
The Association of British Insurers (ABI) has pushed back, with director of general insurance and international Chris Bose telling reporters in December that the suggestion of widespread harm is not borne out by the data, citing 29 million home and travel policies and £3.5 billion paid across 582,000 claims in 2024.
NFU Mutual leads car insurance at 78.27%, while AXA was the most improved at +2.68 points and Hastings Direct trails at 49.74%. Royal Kennel Club tops pet at 65.78%, British Airways leads travel at 68.6%, and Ecclesiastical retains the home crown at 78.5%.
