Banks across the UK have been fined millions of pounds for the mis-selling of Payment Protection Insurance (PPI), Lloyd’s bank were the worst hit by the fines from the Financial Services Authority (FSA) but many other high-street lenders were found guilty by the Governing body.
This has led to banks setting aside multi-billion pound provisions to cope with the onslaught of PPI claims they expect to receive in 2012. In this signal of admittance Lloyd’s have set aside £3.2bn to cope with the PPI complaints they expect to receive thanks to them routinely mis-selling PPI to millions of its customers for several years.
Have I got PPI?
PPI was sold to an applicant of a financial product like a loan or a credit card to cover them in the event of being unable to meet the repayments due to sickness, accident or unemployment. Though a useful product to those that are eligible to reclaim on it the problems started when thousands of complaints were lodged against lenders because customers were unable to use the policy for the purpose it was sold.
PPI was mis-sold by many lenders in the UK as an add-on to a loan, credit card or mortgage and you were mis-sold PPI by your lender if you:
• have been paying for PPI without your knowledge or consent.
• were told that PPI was compulsory or that having it would benefit your application in any way.
• were retired, self-employed or unemployed at the start of the policy.
• were not informed of the policy exclusions including back trouble and stress related illness.
• took PPI to cover you against a long term loan and were not informed that PPI covered a much shorter period meaning you would not be covered for the life of the loan.
• were not told that PPI was a standalone policy that could be purchased elsewhere.
• Were persuaded or pushed into taking the PPI policy as part of your application by the advisor.
If any of the above ring true then you could be eligible to reclaim thousands of pounds in compensation with little work on your behalf, the average claim is worth £3000 and most people have more than one eligible claim. The only thing you need to do is check your policy documents to see if you are or were paying for PPI, identify that you were mis-sold PPI by one of the reasons above and then either use a PPI claims company or go it alone using the templates you can find online for reclaiming, here’s one for you.
You can reclaim PPI on any loan or credit card that you have had in the last 6 years, even if it has been paid off and forgotten about, often people do not even realise they are paying for it let alone that they are eligible for a huge refund.
The best savings account available
PPI compensation is on average £3000 per claim, this can be as much as £100,000 and to our knowledge the biggest compensation for one single loan has been over £200,000 so it is well worth digging out that paperwork and investigating.
When claiming back PPI you receive vastly more than the money you paid into pay for the policy, you get the full amount you paid in premiums, the interest accrued on that amount and 8% in compensation for being mis-sold the policy, it works out to be the best savings account in the world!
How do I claim back compensation?
Claiming back compensation is very simple but can be time consuming especially if your lender re-buffs the claim and you are forwarded to the Financial Ombudsmen Service to fight your corner. The whole process can take 4 weeks, but on average this is more like 8-10 weeks and now with new policies in play the banks and lenders are being urged to refund customers within 8 weeks of complaint being received.
Claiming back your compensation through a claims management company is often the preferred route, here’s a nice guide about how to choose the best PPI claims company for your needs as they can be very different.
For more information on reclaiming PPI compensation you can find some great PPI guides here.
