All About Mis-Sold PPI

In 2005, the Office of Fair Trading received a massive complaint from the Citizens Advice Bureau. It was in relation to the sale of payment protection insurance, and it caused an investigation to be started by the Financial Services Authority. It was deemed that those who had purchased such insurance were not getting a good deal. Some people even had to content with being unable to claim when they tried to use their cover.

Payment Protection Insurance is taken out alongside money borrowed, and protects you against being unable to work if you become sick or unemployed. It’s a very good thing to have, as it provides a tax-free amount each month, to pay towards your financial commitments whilst you are not in work.

Receiving payment protection insurance is highly dependent on circumstance. Are you self-employed? Retired? Working part time? Already subject to a prior ailment? This is just a selection of the common exclusions that are part of payment protection insurance policies, so it is of great benefit to you that you make sure that cover you intend on taking out, is suitable to your individual requirements.

If you have found that having payment protection insurance would be beneficial to you, then your easiest way of paying a low premium for payment protection insurance is to get a policy with a broker that is separate from high street lenders. The cost of your premium is determined by the amount you are insuring, as well as how old you are.

The peace of mind, and overall blanket of security that payment protection insurance gives, is huge. If you do make a claim then you don’t need to worry about your finances, and are likely to get better, faster. Most policies are started no sooner tha
30 days after becoming unemployed, and no later tha
90. Also, they generally run for some time betwee
12-24 weeks, which is considered an adequate period of time in which to recover and return to work. These are general though, and more specific timescales are offered in the terms and conditions of individual policies

High street lenders are in the habit of making money from you. It is their general function. Therefore you will be offered payment protection insurance with whichever company you decide to take a loan with. Payment protection insurance is often added on top of a loan without your consultation, so it needs to be checked. A problem with these policies, when taken out with high street lenders, is the limited amount of information that the consumer is given about the product. This is indeed a big part of the reason why there is an investigation into it all. They sell people a product that they do not have the adequate experience to be selling.

Whilst it is perfectly all right to get a quote with whomever you are borrowing from, you must be sure that you qualify for a policy. You must then consult an independent broker and get a quote from them, too. This is fantastic, as it allows you to utilise the information that will be provided, and make it easy to decide if a policy is suitable. In the greatest number of cases, it is ascertained that the payment protection insurance offered by high street lenders can double the cost of a loan, so go and get that second quote!