The 73.6% GAP Commission: The Dealership’s “Fair Value” Must Be a Typo

There’s confidence… and then there’s audacity.

We recently had a dealership attempt to reject our GAP insurance complaint despite the fact it retained 73.6% of the customer’s payment for the product as pure commission.

Let that sink in.

Not “a healthy margin.” Not “a chunky cut”. Nearly three quarters of the ‘premium’.

So the obvious question is how, in any universe governed by maths, could anyone think that represents fair value?

It’s defence? “At the time of the vehicle purchase in 2015 there was no regulatory requirement to disclose any commission that was received as a result of arranging an insurance product”. Absolutely brilliant if it wasn’t for the scale of consumer harm.

So, by its own admission, “we could rip you off as much as we wanted to because we didn’t have to tell you”.

In this particular instance, of the £449.99 our client paid for the product, the dealership kept £331.19.

GAP Insurance Is Literally On the FCA’s Radar for Poor Value

This isn’t some niche, technical gripe. The FCA has been (slowly) circling GAP for years, and it has intervened because competition and value in the GAP market have been weak. Yet, even against this backdrop, dealerships still attempt to hide behind not having to disclose the amount of commission it took.

Back in 2015, the FCA introduced remedies aimed at preventing point-of-sale pressure and improving competition in add-on GAP insurance, explicitly to empower consumers and reduce the advantage distributors had at the dealership stage.
(FCA PS15/13)

Fast forward to the Consumer Duty era, and the FCA has been even more direct:

• In February 2024, the FCA announced that multiple firms agreed to pause sales of GAP insurance following FCA concerns about fair value.
  (FCA press release)
• The FCA has also publicly called on insurers to demonstrate fair value and good customer outcomes, specifically referencing GAP and explaining what it is and how commonly it’s sold alongside motor finance.
  (FCA press release)

This isn’t subtle. It’s the regulator, with a megaphone, saying “Stop selling poor value products to people who don’t realise they’re being mugged”.

“Fair Value” Isn’t a Vibe, It’s an Obligation

Under the FCA’s Consumer Duty, firms must ensure products provide fair value as part of the “price and value” outcome.
(FCA Handbook – PRIN 2A)

And if anyone thinks fair value is just an insurer problem, think again. GAP is typically distributed through dealerships. If you’re selling it, arranging it, recommending it, or bundling it into the transaction or financing it, you don’t get to shrug and say “Nothing to do with us, mate, we’re just the ones keeping most of the money.”

The FCA has been explicit that poor product value is a recurring harm in general insurance, and it introduced reporting and publication requirements specifically to shine a light on value.

So when a dealership retains 73.6% of the ‘premium’, it doesn’t merely raise a red flag… it raises a full-sized circus tent.

73.6% Commission: What Exactly Did the Customer Pay For?

Here’s the practical reality.

GAP insurance is meant to protect a customer if a vehicle is written off and there’s a shortfall between the insurer’s payout and the finance settlement / purchase price.

It is not meant to protect the dealership’s profit lines.

If 73.6% of the customer’s payment is commission, then one of two things must be true:

• the underlying policy cost is tiny compared to the price charged, or
• the product is priced so aggressively that the value to the consumer becomes an afterthought

Either way, the dealership’s attempted rejection of the complaint looks less like a considered position and more like “If we aggressively dismiss it, maybe it goes away.”

But it didn’t go away, because we didn’t let it go away.

The Dealership’s Rejection Attempt. A Bold Strategy but Terrible Optics

When a firm rejects a complaint, it’s effectively saying:

• our sale process was appropriate
• our pricing was justified
• our commission was fair
• the customer received fair value

So let’s play that out.

How did the dealership satisfy itself that 73.6% commission was fair value?

What comparison did it do?

• Did it compare the premium to the likely benefit a consumer could reasonably expect?
• Did it consider whether the customer could obtain equivalent cover elsewhere for materially less?
• Did it consider that the FCA has forced change in the GAP market precisely because consumers often don’t shop around at point of sale?

Or did it do the industry classic, call it “optional,” hand over a leaflet, and sprint to the signature line?

This Is Exactly Why The FCA Intervened

The FCA’s whole concern with add-on products (GAP being the poster child) is that the point-of-sale environment is perfect for poor value:

• customers are focused on the vehicle
• they’re under time pressure
• they’re overwhelmed with paperwork
• they’re primed to accept “recommended” add-ons
• and they’re least likely to price-check a product they didn’t plan to buy that day

That’s why the FCA stepped in. And that’s why a dealership taking 73.6% commission doesn’t look like a normal commercial arrangement.

It looks like a value failure by design.

What Should Happen Now

A strong regulator would step in and force the dealership to review all prior GAP sales to determine fair value.

Where fair value is lacking the dealership should contact all affected customers and offer a full refund.

The dealership should be fined, or placed under special measures until such time as it understands that 73.6% commission isn’t fair, and never has been.

Unfortunately, with a regulator that is focused on assisting the government to grow the economy, the profit revenues for the industry seem to come above consumer rights and fairness.

We’ll keep on bringing this to the attention of the FCA and FOS, until such time as change is forced.

Final Thought: If This Is “Fair Value,” Words Have No Meaning

FOS and the FCA can talk all day about outcomes, duties, and standards.

But sometimes you don’t need a policy paper to spot the problem.

Sometimes you just need a calculator.

73.6% commission is not “fair value.”
It’s a confession.

And the audacity of trying to reject the complaint afterwards is the icing on the cake, paid for, presumably, out of the remaining 26.4%.



The PCP Cold Call That Lasted Exactly Until I Mentioned TPS

Today (Tuesday 17th February 2026) I received an unsolicited call from a firm trying to sign me up for a PCP claim.

The caller faces a number of problems:

1. My mobile number is registered with the Telephone Preference Service (TPS) – the UK’s official “do not call” register for unsolicited sales and marketing calls.
   (tpsonline.org.uk)
2. The caller used a name that only exists to catch spam callers, a “canary” name I provide when I want to see exactly who’s selling my details.
3. I’ve been here before, and as a business owner that operates in the claims sector I know that this scourge puts all of us in a bad light and I do what I can to stop it.

I recorded the call, and I’ll be sending the evidence to the ICO (who enforces the rules on nuisance marketing calls) and the FCA (because anyone pushing “claims” activity like this should be prepared for regulatory scrutiny).
(ICO – PECR guidance)

And the most telling detail?

The moment I said “TPS”, the caller hung up. No debate. No confusion. No “we thought we had consent”. Just… gone.

The TPS Exists for Exactly This

Let’s be crystal clear, TPS isn’t a polite suggestion. It’s the mechanism people use to opt out of unsolicited live marketing calls.

Organisations making live marketing calls are expected to screen numbers against TPS and maintain “do not call” lists.

So when a caller dials a TPS-registered number to sell a claims service, this isn’t a “mistake”. It’s usually one of two things:

• incompetence, or
• a desperate business model that relies on breaking the rules until someone stops them

Given the speed of the hang-up, I’m not betting on incompetence.

This Isn’t Just Annoying, it’s Poisonous

These outfits aren’t just irritating consumers. They’re actively damaging genuine, compliant firms.

We saw this during PPI. A legitimate issue became a gold rush, and the public got battered by waves of nuisance calls, dodgy lead generation, and “we can get you thousands” nonsense.

Now it’s happening again, but with motor finance/PCP claims as the new bait.

And here’s the kicker, claims cold calling has already been targeted by government and a ban was introduced in relation to claims services (except where the person has consented).

So why are these calls still happening?

Because rogue operators know the economics:

• make enough calls,
• hook enough people,
• and treat the occasional complaint as “cost of doing business”.

Regulators Have Teeth, Let’s Make Them Use Them

If anyone thinks the ICO doesn’t act, think again.

The ICO has fined firms for unlawful marketing calls to TPS-registered numbers, including a £90,000 fine against a compensation-related company that made 95,000+ unsolicited marketing calls without evidence of consent.
(ICO – enforcement example)

So yes, this behaviour is absolutely on the regulator’s radar.

What’s missing is volume. Complaints. Evidence.

Which is why I recorded the call.

Why I Record These Calls

Because nuisance callers thrive in the fog.

They rely on:

• consumers not knowing the rules,
• consumers not having proof, and
• regulators receiving “he said / she said” summaries instead of clean evidence.

A recording cuts through all of that.

If you’re going to report a call, evidence matters.

Common-sense note: be careful about sharing recordings publicly, but providing evidence to regulators as part of a complaint is very different from uploading it for entertainment.

What Needs to Happen Next

This stops when it becomes unprofitable.

So here’s what I’m calling for:

1. The FCA and ICO must treat PCP/claims cold calling as a priority – Not a side quest. Not a “we’ll add it to the pile.” A priority.
2. Meaningful penalties, and faster – Fines exist. Use them. Publicise them. Repeat offenders shouldn’t get endless chances.
3. Clamp down on lead generation supply chains – These firms don’t just call, they buy, sell, recycle and repackage your data. That ecosystem needs disrupting.
4. Better protection for compliant firms – The good operators get tarred with the same brush. That’s unfair, and it drives consumers away from legitimate help.

These are not difficult to implement, and would be welcomed by all who operate in the correct manner.

If This Happens to You

• Register with TPS (if you haven’t already):
• If you’re TPS-registered and still get marketing calls, report them to the ICO:
• Note the number, time, what was said, and try to get the caller to confirm:
  • who they are,
  • where they got your data,
  • and what “consent” they think they have.

Most of the time, they magically develop a sudden interest in ending the call.

Final Thought: “We’ll Help With Your PCP Claim” Is the New “Have You Had an Accident?”

Unsolicited claims calls aren’t a harmless nuisance. They’re a pipeline for misinformation, pressure selling, data misuse, and they corrode trust in an entire sector.

It happened with PPI. It’s happening again.

It only stops when regulators are flooded with evidence and forced to act.

So to the mystery caller who hung up the moment I mentioned TPS:

Thanks for confirming everything I needed to know about where you were calling from.



FOS Training? What Training? When the Investigator Asks Us for the File…

There’s a particular kind of institutional decline that doesn’t arrive with a bang. It arrives with an email. Polite. Earnest. Completely, catastrophically wrong.

This week, we had a fresh batch of examples of what can only be described as the Financial Ombudsman Service operating with its headlights off again, when a new investigator was assigned to our GAP insurance complaints and, brace yourself, asked us for the case file.

Not the seller.
Not the lender.
Not the business being complained about.

Us.

The complainant’s representative.

If you’re wondering whether that’s how any remotely functional ombudsman process works, let me save you the suspense, it isn’t. The file is requested from the respondent firm, not the representative. This is basic day one training, and FOS is getting it wrong and letting these people loose to investigate consumer complaints.

And it’s not a harmless slip. It’s a symptom.

The Basics – Who Holds the File?

Let’s start with the part that should be so obvious it shouldn’t need typing:

In a complaint, the seller and/or lender hold the sales documentation, disclosures, commission data, call recordings, and internal notes. They are the parties who arranged the product, received the money, and built the paper trail. If the investigator needs the file, the correct direction of travel is:

FOS → Seller/Lender → File → FOS → Fair investigation

Not:

FOS → “Hi, can you send us the file?” → Complainant

That’s not investigation. That’s outsourcing. And to the party with the least access to the underlying records.

So what does it tell us when a front-line investigator begins a case by asking the wrong person for the core evidence?

Only two possibilities:

• They don’t understand the process, or
• They don’t understand the product, or
• (Bonus option) They don’t understand either, but have still been placed in charge of the outcome.

None of those are acceptable for an organisation that is, for the majority of consumers, the last stop in their pursuit of justice.

GAP Insurance Isn’t “Exotic” — FOS Shouldn’t Be Treating It Like a New Species

GAP insurance complaints are not fringe. They are not rare. They are not a niche hobby pursued by a small underground community of claims handlers.

GAP is a mainstream, high-volume add-on product, historically sold aggressively and often bundled with finance. It sits squarely in the arena of:

• value,
• suitability,
• disclosure,
• conflicts of interest,
• commission,
• and whether the consumer understood what they were paying for (and why).

If FOS cannot competently triage something as fundamental as ‘who holds the file’, we are forced to ask what chance is there that the investigation will properly grapple with the actual issues?

Because the issues aren’t difficult to state:

• What did the consumer pay, end-to-end?
• What did the underwriter receive (the actual risk cost)?
• How much was swallowed by commission and distribution?
• Was that properly disclosed?
• Was the product fair value?
• Was it sold in a way that was fair, clear, and not misleading?
• Was it suitable for the consumers needs?

You don’t get to a fair answer by starting the process with a scavenger hunt.

“These Employees Should Be Nowhere Near the Front Line”

That sounds harsh. It is harsh. And it’s true.

There is a minimum competence threshold required to investigate complaints that can materially affect lives, businesses, and financial outcomes. When that threshold isn’t met, the damage is not theoretical:

• Consumers wait longer.
• Firms incur needless cost responding to confused requests.
• Evidence goes missing or is never properly obtained.
• Decisions are made on incomplete records.
• Complaints are mishandled, delayed, or “resolved” on procedural misunderstandings rather than substance.

A complaint investigation is not an apprenticeship in real time, carried out on the public.

If FOS is placing inexperienced investigators into complex complaint streams without adequate training, mentoring, or supervision, then FOS isn’t merely underperforming. It is structurally failing the very purpose it exists to serve.

The Leadership Problem. This Isn’t a One-Off, It’s Systemic

Let’s be blunt, this simply doesn’t happen in a well-led organisation.

It’s not just “a new investigator asked a silly question.” It’s why that question was asked, how that investigator was deployed, and what safeguards apparently weren’t in place to stop the basics being missed.

Competent leadership would ensure:

• clear investigation checklists,
• product-specific training (GAP is not new),
• escalation routes,
• supervision,
• quality assurance,
• and a culture where asking for core evidence follows a defined, correct process.

So when we see elementary errors, we don’t just see an individual mistake. We see:

• inadequate onboarding,
• weak supervision,
• overwhelmed teams,
• and an organisation trying to process volume while quietly misplacing competence.

And that is not an insult. It is an observation, based on what FOS is doing in real world cases.

The All-Time Low Problem – Standards, Knowledge, and the Cost of “Good Enough”

FOS has a public role. It holds a privileged position. It influences industry behaviour and consumer outcomes. It is supposed to be the place where fairness is applied with care and consistency.

But fairness requires two things FOS increasingly appears to be struggling with… strong understanding and an attention to detail.

This isn’t complicated, and competent leadership, processes and training would’t allow anything less.

And yet the system seems content to run on “close enough,” while consumers are left waiting and firms are left frustrated, with both sides paying the price for procedural incompetence.

A Simple Test FOS Should Apply to Itself

Before assigning an investigator to any complaint stream, FOS should be able to answer:

• Do they understand the product?
• Do they understand the evidence chain?
• Do they understand who bears which obligations?
• Do they know what documents are required as standard?
• Do they understand commission structures enough to ask the right questions?

If the answer is “not yet,” that employee should not be conducting front-line investigations. They should be in training, shadowing, and supervised, not steering outcomes.

Because the public doesn’t need a learner driver at the wheel of an ombudsman decision.

If the organisation is overwhelmed, the honest answer is to admit it, resource it properly, and stop pretending the solution is to place undertrained staff on the front line and hope nobody notices.

We notice.

Final Thought. If This Is the Start, What Does the End Look Like?

When the opening move in a complaint investigation is “can you send us the file?” asked of the wrong party, it raises a serious question:

If this is the standard at the beginning, what confidence can anyone have in the decision at the end?

Because consumers deserve better than this.

And if FOS is now at an all-time low on standards and knowledge, it’s not merely disappointing.

It’s dangerous.



FOS, Freedom of Information, and the Fine Art of “Next Week, Promise”

There’s a special kind of irony reserved for organisations that sit in judgement of everyone else’s standards while repeatedly failing their own.

The Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) routinely expects firms to meet deadlines, communicate clearly, and treat consumers fairly. Yet when it is asked to do something basic, such as providing information it holds, its culture is called into question once again.

This isn’t about a complex, sprawling request that would require a team of archivists, a warehouse search, and a séance. This was a very straightforward Freedom of Information request.

The timeline – three deadlines, three misses

A Freedom of Information request was submitted to FOS on 20th November 2025.

• 17th December 2025 — FOS said disclosure would be provided by this date. It wasn’t.
• 21st January 2026 — FOS emailed to apologise and said disclosure would be provided by 30th January 2026. It wasn’t.
• 30th January 2026 — FOS said disclosure would be provided by 6th February 2026. Again, it wasn’t.

As of 10th February 2026, that’s 82 calendar days since the request was made, and still no sign of disclosure.

Now here’s the part that really sticks… FOS publicly states it will respond to FOI requests “as soon as we can, or within 20 working days… If we need more time, we’ll let you know and tell you why.”
(financial-ombudsman.org.uk)

Three missed dates. No disclosure. And no meaningful explanation that justifies the repeated failure to do what it says, in black and white, it will do.

“Information rights” doesn’t mean “information eventually”

FOS also makes an important distinction, if you want your personal data, you use a subject access request (SAR), which is governed by data protection law rather than FOI.
(financial-ombudsman.org.uk)

And the ICO’s public guidance is clear, organisations should respond to data protection rights requests as quickly as possible, and no later than one calendar month, with limited scope to extend for complexity.
(ico.org.uk)

So let’s be blunt, whether we’re talking FOI duties or UK GDPR culture, the principle is the same. Information rights come with time limits for a reason. They’re not optional. They’re not “best endeavours”. They’re not “whenever we get a free afternoon”.

They exist because delay is power. Delay controls the narrative. Delay frustrates scrutiny. And delay very conveniently kicks difficult questions into the long grass.

What was the request about?

Our FOI request centred on incentives and targets set for FOS employees.

In other words, do the people deciding complaints operate under performance metrics that might influence behaviour? Closure rates? Uphold rates? Productivity measures?

You know, exactly the sort of thing that matters if you’re an organisation whose entire legitimacy rests on the perception of independence, fairness, and careful consideration.

So why the delay?

Let’s be fair (because someone should be).

There are benign explanations:

• Under-resourcing and backlog
• Poor internal case management
• Dysfunctional handoffs between teams
• Fear of accidentally disclosing personal data requiring redaction

All possible.

But here’s the problem… FOS has had ample opportunity to simply say that, clearly supported by reasons, and to provide a revised, credible timetable.

Instead, we got the worst of both worlds. Repeated firm deadlines, confidently stated, then quietly ignored.

At some point, “oops” stops being an accident and starts looking like a habit.

When the watchdog normalises non-compliance

This is the deeper point, FOS is not just any organisation. It’s a public-facing adjudicator with enormous influence over consumers and firms. Its culture sets the tone.

FOS being sloppy with deadlines isn’t a minor admin hiccup. It’s symptomatic of a service operating in chaos.

Because if an ordinary business behaved like this FOS would not call it “an unfortunate oversight”. It would call it what it usually is:

• poor service
• inadequate communication
• failure to treat the customer properly

And yet here we are.

The uncomfortable question, is the truth embarrassing?

Which brings us to the question FOS has created through its own conduct, are these delays happening because the disclosure will cause reputational damage if the truth is revealed?

We can’t state that as fact. We don’t need to, because the pattern does the talking.

When a body misses three self-imposed disclosure deadlines on a request about staff incentives and targets, it is entirely reasonable to ask whether FOS is:

• trying to soften the ground before releasing something awkward, or
• hoping the requester gives up, or
• quietly negotiating internally about what can be released without public fallout.

In transparency work, delay is rarely neutral. Delay is often a strategy, whether deliberate or culturally embedded.

“Be respectful to our staff”… sure. Be respectful to the public, too.

FOS’s FOI page includes a reminder to the public to be respectful when communicating with staff. Fine, no issue with that.
(financial-ombudsman.org.uk)

But respect is reciprocal.

It is not respectful to:

• commit to dates and ignore them,
• offer apologies that change nothing,
• and treat lawful information requests as if they’re optional.

What should happen now?

FOS itself sets out the escalation route, if you’re unhappy with the response, request a review, and if still unhappy, go to the ICO.
(financial-ombudsman.org.uk)

That route exists for a reason, and it is a route we have taken (although the ICO has a backlog of 40 weeks!).

But zooming out, there’s a broader fix FOS should implement immediately:

• Publish staff incentive structures and targets proactively (anonymised where necessary). If it’s defensible, transparency helps FOS. If it’s not defensible, that’s not a reason to hide it.
• Stop issuing deadlines it can’t meet. If more time is needed, explain why, once, properly, with a date that means something.
• Adopt the standards it preaches. It cannot credibly lecture the market on good conduct while normalising its own failure to comply with basic information rights expectations.

Final thought. The delay is the story

FOS was brought under FOI because it performs public functions and the public deserves openness and accountability.
(gov.uk)

So when FOS repeatedly fails to provide a simple disclosure, on a topic as sensitive as internal targets and incentives, the obvious conclusion is not “how unlucky”.

It’s “what are they trying not to show?”

Because if the answer was harmless, we’d have had it by now.