Our appeals policy is changing on 17 February 2026
We have made some updates to how FSCS handles appeals. The new appeals policy will apply from 17 February 2026. The changes include:
- Moving from a two-stage internal appeal process to a one-stage internal appeal process.
- This means that any decisions issued on or after 17 February 2026 will be subject to an internal appeal process. After this, the decision may be reviewed by the Courts through an application for (or a claim for) judicial review.
If you’d like to learn more about the FSCS appeals policy and the updates that we have made, you may also find our additional FAQs useful.
Appealing a claim decision
We want customers to be able to ask FSCS questions about the decision reached on their claim and request an appeal if there is a basis for doing so, for example if you think the outcome reached on your claim is wrong.
From 21 February 2024 to 16 February 2026 FSCS decisions are subject to a two-stage appeal process, which is explained on this page. You can also listen to our podcast episode about our appeals process.
Have questions about our decision on your claim?
If you need to discuss the decision we’ve made on your claim, please call us on 0800 678 1100. We will then arrange for your case handler to talk you through our decision and answer any questions you have.
Alternatively, you can reach us via email using our contact us form. We’ll try to get back to you within five working days.
Appealing our decision on your claim
If you've already discussed your claim with us and you're still unhappy, you can appeal our decision using the details provided in your decision letter. You must do this within three months of our decision.
Your appeal will be reviewed by someone who wasn’t involved in deciding your original claim.
We’ll let you know we've got your appeal within two working days and aim to respond within 20 working days. We'll let you know if it might take longer.
Escalating your appeal
If you’re still unhappy with our decision after an appeal, you can escalate your appeal. We’ll explain how to do this if you reach this stage.
We will review your escalated appeal independently of our previous decisions. This is to make sure we’ve made the right decision in line with our rules and policies.
We’ll let you know we've got your escalated appeal within two working days and aim to respond within 20 working days. We’ll let you know if it might take longer.
Judicial review
At the end of the two-stage appeal process, if you’re still unhappy with FSCS’s decision, you may be able to challenge our decision in the High Court through a process called judicial review.
If you get to this stage, we’ll let you know. Any application for judicial review needs to follow a specific procedure. The link above takes you to information about the correct procedure to follow.
Making an appeal as a professional representative
If you're a professional representative and you appeal our decision on your customer’s claim, it will follow the same two-stage process outlined above.
You can submit an appeal on multiple claims together. We will inform you of any specific steps we require you to follow. These appeals will typically take a little longer to investigate and our standard timescales won’t apply. We’ll let you know how long we expect it to take us to respond. This will depend on the number of individual appeals and the complexity of any issues raised.
Our appeals process
Please click here (pdf 63.3KB) to download and read the appeals policy that applied from 21 February 2024.
If you’d like to learn more about the FSCS appeals policy, you may also find our additional FAQs useful.
Complaints
For complaints about FSCS itself or its staff, visit our complaints page.
Confidentiality
We hold all personal information in line with our data protection policy and privacy policy. You can also ask us to send you these policies in the post.