Payment Protection Insurance

Payment Protection Insurance is a type of financial product which was designed to enable consumers to insure their regular debt repayments in case they lose their job or are unable to work due to chronic ill health. Although the product sounds like it provides a great deal of utility to consumers, this is often not the case as PPI providers routinely inflate the cost of premiums so that these are wholly disproportionate to the amount of debt insured, and it is common for underwriters to include restrictive terms in the insurance agreement which would prevent a policyholder from successfully claiming the benefit of the policy in all but a handful of scenarios.

PPI policies which are optimised for profit and which are virtually useless to consumers are nonetheless very widely subscribed to and this is because many PPI providers have deliberately and consistently broken Financial Services Authority rules and regulations on selling practices in order to trick, pressure and cajole consumers into purchasing Payment Protection Insurance.

The types of mis-selling which have been reported range from minor breaches of FSA rules, such as failing to point out to consumers that they may be able to purchase similar cover cheaper on the open market to cases verging on fraud, where salespeople have added PPI cover to credit products without the knowledge and consent of the consumer.

If a PPI policy is mis-sold then the insurance contract is invalid and the policyholder is entitled to a full refund of any premiums which he has paid towards the policy. In the case of someone who has been paying toward a PPI policy for a number of years, this could mean a refund of thousands of pounds. If you or anyone you know has been affected by PPI mis-selling then we can help you to claim the compensation you deserve.