The Financial Services Compensation Scheme paid out £584m in 2020/21, shows its latest annual report.

This compares to £527m in 2019/20.

The majority of this, £323m, went to life distribution and investment intermediation, while just £2m went to home finance intermediation.

Overall, the FSCS says it helped 52,623 people as 1,131 firms got into trouble – with 92 of these failing – and scored a customer satisfaction rating of 84%.

“Receiving our highest-ever customer satisfaction score of 86 per cent in a month would be a great achievement at any time. But to gain this in one of our busiest years and during a global pandemic is a tribute to the incredibly hard work of everyone at FSCS,” says chief executive Caroline Rainbird.

Meanwhile, it reports that like-for-like handling costs fell 3%, £9m savings of which came through the use of artificial intelligence and automation.

In May, the FSCS revised its levy forecast down from £1.04bn to £833m following large amounts of criticism concerning a rise in how much it asks of the 45,227 registered financial services firms that currently pay into it.

On this, Rainbird says: “Several factors have caused the levy to increase, including an ongoing rise in complex pension advice claims; compensation payments related to London Capital & Finance plc; and more self-invested personal pension operator failures.

“I have said before that the levy is far too high, and we must take swift action with the industry and regulators to tackle the causes of the increase.

“We have been looking at how we can use our data and knowledge to help provide solutions and are working closely with the FCA on this. We meet with the industry regularly to discuss how we can better understand why firms fail and help to reduce future levy bills.”