Howden Life & Health: most-reported complaints
Automated analysis of 609 public Trustpilot reviews published 2025-04-29 to 2026-09-23. TrustScore 4.9 from 12,049 total reviews — see the Trustpilot page. Quick answer: is Howden Life & Health legit? Issues below reflect what reviewers reported, not findings of wrongdoing.
Reviewers most often report issues with other concerns and unhelpful support, each accounting for 30% of the 60 identified complaints. Support being unreachable was cited in 23% of complaints, while misleading pricing made up the remaining 10%. The trend for other concerns is rising, whereas support unhelpful and support unreachable trends are flat, and misleading pricing is falling.
How to reach Howden Life & Health
These are the contact details Howden Life & Health publishes on its Trustpilot profile, as of our last check on 2026-09-23 — phone 0800 953 9533, email [email protected], address Ageas House, Gloucester Business Park, Gloucester, Gloucester, GL3 4ZP, GB.
The company claimed its Trustpilot profile on 2023-10-01, uses Trustpilot’s paid features, uses Trustpilot’s AI-assisted replies, and last replied to a negative review on 2026-09-22. Trustpilot ranks it 18 of 172 in Insurance Broker. We last checked this profile on 2026-09-23 and found 27 new reviews. These are facts Trustpilot publishes about the profile, as of our last harvest.
Forum footprint: 0 MoneySavingExpert forum discussions mention this company (browse). Roughly 0 of the top, relevance-sorted search results were posted in the last 90 days — an approximate figure by construction, not a true recency count.
Elsewhere: 4.3★ on Google (0 reviews)
TrustScore over time
4.9 → 4.9 across 15 census measurements since 2026-08-12. Our own record, independent of Trustpilot’s display.
Reply behaviour over time
Solid: % of negative reviews replied to. Dashed: typical days to reply. Both as reported on this company’s Trustpilot profile, recorded whenever our census re-checked it and a figure had changed — the gaps between points are not equal: 2026-08-12 (100%, 0.6d) · 2026-08-15 (100%, 0.6d) · 2026-08-18 (100%, 0.6d) · 2026-08-21 (100%, 0.6d) · 2026-08-24 (100%, 0.6d) · 2026-08-27 (97%, 0.6d) · 2026-09-01 (100%, 0.6d) · 2026-09-04 (97%, 0.6d) · 2026-09-07 (100%, 0.6d) · 2026-09-11 (97%, 0.6d) · 2026-09-14 (100%, 0.6d) · 2026-09-17 (100%, 0.6d) · 2026-09-20 (100%, 0.6d) · 2026-09-23 (100%, 0.6d).
Severity: 23% of this company’s 60 graded complaints were classified as severe (money lost, an essential service cut off, or a problem unresolved for months). See the harm index.
Reviewers here waited a median of 1.6 days between the experience and publishing their negative review (178 reviews record both dates).
Ombudsman outcomes
The Financial Ombudsman Service has published 1 decisions naming this firm (too few to quote an upheld rate).
Covers decisions dated 2026-04-22 to 2026-04-22, by the acceptance-deadline date the Ombudsman publishes — not the date the complaint was decided.
Official published outcomes from the Financial Ombudsman Service, not our analysis. Uphold rates reflect the cases that reached the ombudsman, not all complaints. source.
Measured reply time: across 201 negative reviews that received a public reply, the median wait was 0.6 days — the company profile reports an average of under a day.
Reply quality: of 201 company replies to negative reviews analysed, 45% engaged with the specific problem and 49% were generic templates.
Review provenance: 417 company-invited reviews in the recent window average 4.88★, while 136 organic (uninvited) reviews average 4.85★.
15% of its 516 recent 5★ reviews came from accounts that had written only that one review when we captured it (the median across companies is about 39%). A high share is a reason to look closer, not evidence of fake reviews.
Sector benchmark: other makes up 30% of this company’s complaints vs a 16% median across 126 ranked companies in its sector.
Review velocity: 3,138 of this company’s 12,049 Trustpilot reviews (26%) were written in the last 12 months.
What are the most common complaints about Howden Life & Health?
Other
18 reports · 30% of complaintsrising since 2026-04“Do not trust this company they are mis selling income protection policy’s and advise to answer questions incorrectly”
The company replied on 2026-03-25: “I understand you spoke with a team manager today about the issue. A complaint has been filed here, and our customer service manager will contact you soon.”
Our classifier read this reply as a template response.
“I have unknowingly been uninsured for almost a year”
The company replied on 2025-10-30: “Hi Jenny, I just want to let you know we are currently investigating your case and will be in touch very soon. Best regards, Samantha”
Our classifier read this reply as a substantive response.
It promised: to escalate.
“Completely been mislead by this company and its advisor.”
The company replied on 2026-09-11: “Thank you for your feedback. We understand that our Customer Relations Team has investigated your concerns and has contacted you by phone and email yesterday. If you would like to provide any…”
Our classifier read this reply as a template response.
Support unhelpful
18 reports · 30% of complaintssteady“they will think of a hundred excuses not to pay you out”
The company replied on 2026-06-16: “Thank you for your feedback. I understand you have already raised a complaint with your insurer, and this has been investigated. If you have any further questions or comments, please email…”
Our classifier read this reply as a template response.
“It’s not included in my policy.”
The company replied on 2026-01-08: “Dear George, We wish to extend our sincere apologies for any distress experienced during your application for income protection. As your broker, it is our responsibility to identify the most suitable…”
Our classifier read this reply as a substantive response.
It promised: to escalate.
“paying for a policy that doesnt cover ANYTHING AT ALL”
The company replied on 2025-07-31: “We regret you feel the policy didn't meet your needs and that the cancellation process was difficult. We appreciate you bringing this to our attention. We'll review your case to see how we can…”
Our classifier read this reply as a template response.
Support unreachable
14 reports · 23% of complaintssteady“they didn’t even bother to reply. I requested again to cancel this week, then I was informed that my cover was not valid from January”
The company replied on 2026-08-06: “Thank you for bringing this to our attention. We are currently looking into this for you and will review the matter as quickly as possible. If you'd like to discuss it with our Customer Relations…”
Our classifier read this reply as a substantive response.
It promised: to escalate.
“I tried their number a few times but no answer.”
The company replied on 2025-11-25: “We appreciate you bringing this to our attention. We are sorry to hear about the difficulties you experienced reaching us and the confusion regarding your medical policy. Our customer services…”
Our classifier read this reply as a substantive response.
It promised: to make contact.
“Follow up questions on email ignored and not answered.”
Misleading pricing
6 reports · 10% of complaintsfalling“Sold a product. That dont cover me.”
The company replied on 2026-01-19: “Thank you for your feedback, I have passed your review to our complaints team.”
Our classifier read this reply as a template response.
“It’s not included in my policy.”
The company replied on 2026-01-08: “Dear George, We wish to extend our sincere apologies for any distress experienced during your application for income protection. As your broker, it is our responsibility to identify the most suitable…”
Our classifier read this reply as a substantive response.
It promised: to escalate.
“I feel like I was a little mislead in the change from my old insurer to my new one.”
The company replied on 2025-08-13: “Hi, we are currently looking into your review and due to contact you at 3pm today. Warm regards Samantha Cross”
Our classifier read this reply as a substantive response.
It promised: to make contact.
Not as described
5 reports · 8% of complaintsrising since 2026-04“Sold a policy they claimed gave identical cover to the one it replaced. It didn’t, in fact it was wholly inadequate.”
The company replied on 2026-08-28: “We understand that you have raised a complaint, which is currently being investigated by our team.”
Our classifier read this reply as a template response.
“Sure enough I clearly state this, yet they were happy to sell me a package that didn’t avoid the wait.”
The company replied on 2026-06-15: “Thank you for your feedback. I can see you’ve already raised a complaint with the team, so they’re best placed to look into this for you and provide an update.”
Our classifier read this reply as a template response.
“paying for a policy that doesnt cover ANYTHING AT ALL”
The company replied on 2025-07-31: “We regret you feel the policy didn't meet your needs and that the cancellation process was difficult. We appreciate you bringing this to our attention. We'll review your case to see how we can…”
Our classifier read this reply as a template response.
Account/app problems
3 reports · 5% of complaintsfalling“left me without cover for 3 months”
The company replied on 2025-05-12: “We understand your frustration with the lapse in coverage. We strive to provide seamless service and are committed to improving our processes to prevent similar situations in the future.”
Our classifier read this reply as a template response.
“messed up my date of birth and missed my partner off the policy”
The company replied on 2025-09-01: “We appreciate your feedback and will review our processes to prevent similar issues.”
Our classifier read this reply as a template response.
“it has gone through as WPA.”
The company replied on 2025-05-01: “Hi, thank you for this feedback. We are currently investigating this for you.”
Our classifier read this reply as a template response.
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Method: reviews are classified into a fixed complaint taxonomy by an automated reader; every category shown is backed by at least two verbatim quotes from distinct reviews. Trends are computed from dated review counts only. Negative reviews are deliberately over-sampled for evidence depth; headline percentages use an unbiased recent sample only. Report updated 2026-09-23.