HOME repair insurance business Homeserve has been fined more than £30 million following a mis-selling scandal that exposed "serious, systemic and long-running failings".
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) said between 2005 and 2011 the company had a profit-driven culture where targets were met by taking advantage of existing customers.
In addition to the record fine, Homeserve has paid £12.9m to affected customers in redress and is expected to pay £16.8m in total.
FCA director Tracey McDermott said: "Homeserve is another example of a firm that has acted without proper regard for its customers over a long period.
Chief executive Richard Harpin said: "We sincerely regret that customers have been affected by these issues.
"We have worked very hard over the last two years to put customers back at the heart of our business."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article