Got a long standing complaint running against Direct line. They have given their final response on the matter and we have taken it further to the ombudsman as they suggested. The ombudsman have found in our favour but have advised that they are so inundated with similar cases that they won't be able to judge on a final settlement for 6 further months.
Now I know Direct line where snowed under dealing with claims at the time of the incident, they where hopeless, and unresponsive even then. On a previous incident, possibly a year earlier, they settled in full because they had lost the file, and a call centre jobsworth admitted they where a shambles even then also.
Not all the ombudsman cases will be direct lines of course, but of all the complaints raised, not all wil be upheld, not all will be followed up, and not all will be upheld by the ombudsman to get to the queue my case is in, so looking at the process involved, that's a hell of a lot of cases.
So IMO it just confirms what I suspect some of us already knew, insurance industry, ESP car insurance, is in a right state.