"Just looking at price alone is very misleading. You really need to understand the cover beneath that to understand what you’re getting."
- Jason Storah - Aviva
Alistair Hargreaves, chief executive of UK insurance at Admiral Group, Jason Storah, CEO of UK & Ireland general insurance at Aviva, and Nick Turner, group chief executive at NFU Mutual, gave evidence to the House of Lords (HoL) Financial Services Regulation committee’s consumer insurance regulation inquiry yesterday, Wednesday 22nd July, discussing the importance of visible Consumer Duty and pushing back against the idea of product standardisation.
The session made up part of the committee’s inquiry into how home and travel insurance is regulated. This came after instances such as the Which? Super complaint in September 2025 that highlighted how these markets have some of the lowest claims acceptance rates.
The impact of Consumer Duty on customers
Storah noted that while "Consumer Duty did cost Aviva quite a lot of money", possibly in part due to the "size and scale" of the organisation, he believes that "it’s not something that still has a long way to run in terms of its impact on consumers and its embeddedness in companies."
"The clarity on what we’re doing and its impact on customers, it’s very well embedded in the business," he said.
Meanwhile, Turner said that adapting to Consumer Duty was "straightforward" for NFU and done so at a "modest cost", attributing this to its status as a mutual. He described "the general transition towards outcome-based regulation" as "a positive," but said that the "transition state" would "take some time to work through," something which NFU supports: "If you remove rules too fast or you streamline rules too fast, it creates a friction of work," he explained.
Hargreaves agreed that Consumer Duty is "very well embedded," but added that "it’s still highlighting areas that we as an industry are working hard to continue to improve."
Despite this, Baroness Noakes DBE, chair of the committee, pointed out the general comment that consumers have not yet seen any visible changes from Consumer Duty.
In response to this, both Hargreaves and Storah addressed consumer understanding: "Customers are making more informed choices and are learning as they go through buying insurance products," Storah said.
Rallying against product standardisation
When asked about whether product standardisation would combat what has been described as a "hollowing out of insurance products" due to price competition, all three firms were opposed to the idea.
"I don’t think product standardisation is the answer," said Storah. "Comparability, being able to compare what’s in different products, is really important.
"Different people’s life circumstances and situations mean that they have different needs," he added. "Focusing on the minimum product requirement and standardising that feels like the lowest common denominator, rather than giving people […] the ability to compare 'apples to apples' across different products and brands and companies."
Storah also suggested that standardising products could cause "reduced competition" and "reduced innovation," something which he sees as a "step back" that "would go against the grain of […] the value of having fit-for-purpose insurance for every individual," as well as "the value of having coverages that are tailored to people’s needs."
"Just looking at price alone is very misleading," he continued. "You really need to understand the cover beneath that to understand what you’re getting."
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Hargreaves echoed this sentiment: "There’s a risk that it [product standardisation] oversimplifies, so a standardised product could be too much cover for some customers and not enough for others.
"It might reduce the obligation to say, 'is my product for this customer?', which is what Consumer Duty asks us to do," he continued.
Turner said that while "standardisation of products is not a good thing […] standardisation of reporting might well be," to "enable consumers to better compare some of their products and services."
The Financial Services Regulation Committee was created in early 2024 after the passing of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2023, establishing a new framework for the regulation of UK financial services. This inquiry was launched in May 2026.
