Michael D'Arcy (Wexford, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

These products are designed to cover policyholders for their entire lifetime or for as long as the policyholder wishes to continue to pay premiums. To decipher that, there is, in effect, no such thing as a whole-of-life policy in that the policy is reviewed every five years. That is the net effect of what is happening. A consumer who has made a formal complaint to a financial institution and is not satisfied with the outcome may go to the Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman to have it investigated independently. The ombudsman is independent in the performance of his statutory functions. A role of the ombudsman is to investigate, mediate and adjudicate complaints about the conduct of regulated financial service providers. As the Senator may be aware, the Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman Act 2017 which commenced on 1 January 2018 established the Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman. The legislation provides the FSPO with various powers to determine jurisdiction of a complaint.

Complaints of conduct against a financial service provider must be about conduct which occurred during or after 2002. Although the sale of a product prior to 2002 is not a bar in itself to investigation by the ombudsman of conduct which occurred after 2002, it is important to note that the legislative provisions governing the power of the ombudsman to investigate such complaints are complex. Section 51 of the Act prescribes a period of six years for the making of a complaint to the FSPO that does not relate to a long-term financial service. Complaints about long-term financial services can be made to the FSPO within whichever of the following periods is the last to expire. One is six years from the date of the conduct giving rise to the complaint, so if one found out about this circumstance at a certain stage when someone was getting older and the premiums raised so much that it was obvious that the person could not continue to pay his or her premiums, it would be six years starting from that period. Another is three years from the earlier of the date on which the person making the complaint became aware or ought reasonably to have become aware of the conduct giving rise to the complaint. A third is such longer period as the ombudsman may allow where it appears to him or her that there are reasonable grounds for requiring a longer period and that it would be just and equitable in all the circumstances to extend the period.

It should be noted that the long-term financial service should not have expired or otherwise been terminated more than six years before the date the complaint is made. It should also be noted that the ombudsman must be cognisant of the provisions of section 52 of the Act which prescribe that he may decline to investigate a complaint where, in his opinion, the conduct complained of occurred at too remote a time to justify investigation. As I have stated, the ombudsman is independent and each complaint is dealt with on its own merits and there may be a number of aspects to this.

Officials in the Department of Finance are examining whole-of-life policies as they present, by their nature, atypical customer protection issues which may not become fully apparent for many years. This examination has only recently commenced. Once this examination is complete, the Department will provide technical advice to the Minister on whether legislative change should be considered. It will then be a matter for the Minister and Government to make policy decisions.