Insurance company delays, denials of claims and unsatisfactorysettlement offers were the top three reasons consumers filed formalcomplaints against their carriers last year, according to datagathered by regulators.

The National Association of Insurance Commissioners, KansasCity, Mo., said policy cancellations and premium/insurance ratingissues completed the top five, reasons for complaints.

Data was collected by the NAIC through its centralizedelectronic Complaint Database System (CDS), through which statesvoluntarily report "closed" complaints.

A closed complaint is a complaint that has been investigated andresolved to the satisfaction of the state or jurisdiction in whichit is filed. First established in 1990, the CDS was significantlyexpanded in 1998 and now houses data on more than 2 millioncomplaints.

A total of 222,814 consumer complaints were reported to the CDSin the 2007 calendar year. Aggregate data compiled from the CDS canbe accessed on the NAIC's Web site through the Consumer InformationSource.

The following is a list of the 2007 top 5 complaints by totalnumber and percentage of overall complaints each represents. Thelist includes: delays, 42,524 (16 percent); denial of claim, 39,152(14.7 percent); unsatisfactory settlement/offer, 26,127 (9.8percent); cancellation, 12,240 (4.6 percent); premium and rating,11,916 (4.4 percent).

By type of coverage, 2007 complaints were as follows: accidentand health, 71,407 (36.4 percent); auto, 67,327 (34.4 percent);homeowners, 24,530 (12.5 percent); life and annuity, 17,727 (9percent); commercial multiperil, 3,675 (1.8 percent).