MORE of us than ever are dumping insurance, utilities deals and financial accounts that are not delivering what they promise. Nevertheless, too many are still more difficult to get out of than they should be.

Moneyexpert, the price comparison service, has logged 37.5m services and products that have been dumped in the six months to the end of September, an increase of nearly 4m on the period to June 30.

It’s no surprise the biggest number of switches were in car insurance, up 906,000 to 6.88m – a huge one-in-seven policies. In home insurance, another annual product, one in ten policies were switched. The recent upheavals in electricity and gas supply, and the ending of many two-year lock-ins on broadband, have prompted similar responses.

Credit cards, too, are swapped relentlessly – and watch for commissions to rise on overseas spending after the House of Lords decision that customers can claim against their card issuer if a foreign purchase goes wrong.

By contrast, only one in 20 have changed mortgages and bank accounts lately. But that is because switching takes saintly patience. I have done so twice in the past three years. One move went swimmingly – thank you, Intelligent Finance – but the other turned into a nightmare.

While bank accounts are fairly simple in themselves, the baggage of multiple accounts, all those direct debits, standing orders and credit cards put people off switching. If you decide to move, I recommend unloading as much of this baggage as possible in advance. It may mean writing cheques to pay bills for a few months, but that is better than being penalised for late payments because the direct debits weren’t transferred at the right time.

Banks eventually compensate customers who can prove they have suffered through no fault of their own, but the hassle factor is daunting. All the same, don’t be put off. The more we switch the more likely the laggards are to pull their socks up.

Hunt season

I’VE always been a fan of the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS). Whenever I have visited its spartan offices near Canary Wharf, east London, I’ve always come away with the impression that its executives lean towards the consumer rather than the banks, insurers and advisers that the public complain about. Chief ombudsman Walter Merrick is certainly no pushover.

Naturally, it doesn’t seem that way if your sincerely felt grouse is rejected, but I am comforted that the financial-services industry feels that it too gets a rough ride from FOS. If one side or the other were totally happy, FOS would probably be getting the balance wrong.

Nevertheless, no organisation is perfect and FOS has asked former Tory minister Lord Hunt to look at how to make the service more accessible. He wants to hear from you whether FOS decisions should be published individually or through league tables, and how it can communicate its decisions most effectively, for consumers and businesses alike.

Your first step, before either complaining or giving Hunt a piece of your mind, is to visit the website, www.financial-ombudsman. org.uk. To win at this game, you have to know the rules and that is the main criticism of FOS: that it is too bureaucratic. This is partly because its decisions can have legal implications, but also because it is a child of the Financial Services Authority, the body that should therefore be conducting this review.

While FOS publishes details of significant cases, it shies away from naming the firms involved. In her column on Page 2, Diana Wright often finds that as a result of identifying wrongdoers a pattern builds up so they can’t claim that an injustice has been a one-off. Hunt should tell FOS to follow her example.

If you’d like to comment, go to thehuntreview.org.uk or the Hunt Review, Beachcroft LLP, 100 Fetter Lane, London, EC4A 1BN.

How patronising

COOPERATIVE Bank must think its ethical credentials have become a little dog-eared, because it is clearly hoping to polish them up with think, its new credit card. But after thinking about it, I reckon the gimmicks far outweigh anything it will achieve.

As the Coop admits, this card is for those who shop with their conscience – and will therefore get a warm and cuddly feeling from knowing the bank has bought half an acre of Brazilian rainforest in their name. This is largely cosmetic, as the acres of rainforest will have to have been bought in advance.

Another 25p will be spent to “help protect” the rainforest for every £100 spent on the card. That should save a leaf or two.

Then there is the bunch of partners the Coop has lined up, including Ikea, the Lush soap shop chain, the national rail network and – conveniently – “selected” Coop firms, all blessed by the Ethical Consumer Research Association.

As with all “affinity” cards, if you want to support these causes you can do so without jumping on the Coop bandwagon. Ikea, Lush and the others will take any credit card, and if you go to www.therainforestsite.com and other websites you can give money to help forests throughout the world, not just Brazil.

The Coop’s think card is merely packaging a bunch of empty gestures in a way that talks down to its would-be customers.