Payment Protection Insurance?

Have you ever borrowed money in the form of credit cards, a loan or a mortgage? If so you may have been sold Personal Protection Insurance (PPI) and you could be owed thousands of pounds in compensation. Payment Protection Insurance protects a borrower’s ability to maintain repayments and helps them avoid getting into debt should they be unable to keep up their repayments due to accident, sickness or unemployment. Payment Protection Insurance is also known as: Accident, Sickness, Unemployment Cover; Redundancy Protection; Loan Protection and Mortgage Payment Cover.

Policies are available to protect most forms of personal credit, including mortgages, personal loans and credit card repayments. Cover is often purchased at the time the finance arrangement is made, but may be available at a later date or taken out as a stand-alone policy.

The Financial Services Authority recently carried out an investigation into the selling of PPI. They found that tens of thousands of people could have received bad advice and are therefore able to claim compensation. If you have or are borrowing money for any of the following reasons then you may have PPI and could be owed thousands of pounds in compensation:

• Consolidation loan
• Loan for a car
• Credit cards
• Personal loan
• Mortgage

Of course, PPI could be very beneficial, but if you are not careful, it can also be very expensive. Inevitably, there is also the usual list of exclusions to look out for. For example:

• Consumers must not be aware of impending unemployment
• Policies do not usually cover unemployment occurring within an initial period of time
• Policies exclude claims arising from pre-existing medical conditions
• Claims that result from your own actions will not be covered.

Like thousands of others, you may have been given bad advice. Were you told about the costs, exclusions, charges or alternative (potentially cheaper) products available to you?
Even better, it will not normally cost you anything in front fees to find out how much you are owed.

That’s because most claims companies operate a no win – no fee service, so you only pay a percentage of anything they claim back. If they don’t claim back anything, and then you don’t pay anything!

How do I know if I’ve been missold Loan Insurance / PPI?

The Financial Services Authority (FSA) has published strict rules for the financial services industry which your financial advisor must follow.

To help you further, here are just a few of the reasons why you may have received bad advice.

• You were told you had to have PPI to get the loan
• You were pressured into buying PPI by a pushy sales person
• You were told PPI would improve your chances of securing a loan
• The small print of the contract was not fully explained to you
• The cost of PPI was not fully explained to you
• You were not told that PPI was included in your credit agreement

THE LIST GOES ON……………Claim NOW! Call 0845 475 5435
Accident, Sickness, Unemployment Protection, Redundancy Protection Cover

Accident, sickness, unemployment and redundancy payment cover are similar types of PPI or payment protection insurance sold alongside loans or mortgages.

What will happen if I lose my job or become ill? How will I cover my costs?

Faced with these concerns, taking out accident, sickness and unemployment (ASU) cover or other income protection seems to make perfect sense. This kind of cover typically gives you a monthly tax free income should you be unable to work.

That’s the theory. The reality can be different. As too many people are discovering, these expensive payment protection policies often don’t pay out a penny when the going gets tough. In fact, they invariably add to our financial burdens rather than provide us with a safety net.

The small print in policies documents often contains numerous exclusion clauses. The income protection policies are invalid if, for example, you have a pre-existing medical condition. Stress and back problems are frequently not covered. Recurring conditions are excluded. Self-employed people often have to stop trading completely in order to make a claim.
Loan Payment Protection

Personal Loan Protection (PLP), including secured loan insurance and unsecured loan insurance, is one of the most common forms of payment protection. It’s also one of the most expensive.

This kind of loan payment protection can be sold with just about any loan. Secured loan insurance is tied to an asset, usually your home. Unsecured loan insurance does not require this kind of security.

You might have purchased loan payment protection when you signed up for a loan to buy a kitchen or a car or to consolidate your debts. You could also have purchased it as credit card payment protection when you applied for a credit card. You might not even know you have Personal Loan Protection (PLP) insurance but be paying for it all the same.

This kind of cover can add a staggering amount to the total size of your debt. Moneyfacts data has looked at hundreds of cases and revealed the astonishing cost of loan payment protection. On one loan of £5,000, for example, the payment protection insurance premiums totalled £1,300 – over 20% of the total loan.

So should you have looked more closely at the terms and conditions? Not necessarily. If the costs of PLP were not made clear to you when you took out your loan, you may have a claim for mis-sold loan protection.
Were you Mis-Sold?

These are just a few examples of how your policy may have been mis-sold:

* You were told you had to have PPI to get the loan
* You were pressured into buying PPI by a pushy sales person
* You had medical problems in the past
* You were not told that PPI was included in your financial product
* You were self-employed, unemployed, redundant or retired at the time

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