Mis Sold PPI Victim Numbers On The Rise
Financial regulation authorities in the UK have in recent times identified numerous breaches of the regulations concerning the selling of Payment Protection Insurance (PPI) policies with loans and other finance agreements. Certain banks and building societies have been found to have mis sold PPI policies to their customers.
More than one million borrowers in the UK may have taken inappropriate and unnecessary Payment Protection Insurance (PPI) when they entered into loan agreements. Sometimes people were sold insurance which was not appropriate to their circumstances such as insurance against loss of income being sold to someone who was not in employment. Sometimes people were not advised that they would be charged up-front for the insurance, and would therefore end up paying extra interest. This article explains how to identify if you have been a victim of a mis-sold PPI policy.
If you have been a victim of PPI mis-selling then you may have a valid financial claim against the responsible bank or building society. There are now many specialist PPI mis-selling claims companies. You can employ one of these companies to make a claim on your behalf, or you can make a claim independently.
You can check if you have a valid claim by reviewing the following questions. If the answer to any question is “no” then you may have a valid claim.
If the PPI insurance was optional, then was that clearly explained to you? It seems that many borrowers were told that their loan application would not be accepted unless they took out the insurance. This was an unfair practice as the insurance was optional and the bank/building society should not have said that.
If the policy excluded pre-existing medical conditions then were you advised of that fact?
If the premium (payment) for the insurance was taken as a single up-front fee, then was that properly explained to you?
Was it clearly explained that the single PPI premium would be added to the loan amount (principal), and that you would therefore be paying interest on this throughout the lifetime of the loan?
Was it clearly explained that the single premium PPI would only last for five years, and that if your loan was for longer than five years you would have no PPI cover for the rest of the loan period? Were you advised that you would still be paying interest on the premium after five years even though the cover had expired?
Newspaper advertisements for PPI claims specialists list a number of major banks, financial institutions and building societies which have fallen foul of the rules on PPI mis-selling. These include Alliance & Leicester, Abbey National, Barclays, Egg, HSBC, Lloyds, TSB, NatWest, RBS, and MBNA. If you feel that you have been mis-sold PPI by one of these, or by any other UK bank then you may have a claim against the lender. Your claim will still be valid even if you have finished paying off the loan.
If you wish to pursue a claim then you can either go it alone, or use a claims specialist company to act for you. Claims specialist companies can easily be found via advertisements in the financial pages of newspapers, or TV advertisements, or on the internet. The claims specialists will be more aware of the most effective ways to make a claim than you would be as an individual, but if you prefer to act alone then there is plenty of advice available in financial magazines and websites.
Learn more about PPI Claims. Visit www.PPIRecovery.com where you can find out all about how to make PPI compensation claims and start to get your cash back.