Payment Protection Scotland - PPI Blog

And why was is allowed to continue for so long? Both are big questions with the answers complex. But if you have a PPI policy, the likelihood is, you ARE entitled to compensation. With the PPI compensation deadline only five months away, now is the time to start your claim.

Wrapped Up in The Law

Even though it was spotted back in the mid-1990s by consumer groups and some politicians, the issue of stopping banks from mis-selling PPI policies was hindered, in many respects, by the law.

In the UK, the Government does not 'interfere' with the market by dictating what can be sold and at what price. This 'free market' scenario means that when there are issues with how products and services are being sold, the onus for change must come from the customer.

But thousands upon thousands of customers were blinded by loyalty. Why on earth, they questioned, would their bank, an institution they had been with for decades, sell them a policy that was not only over-priced but of no use to them?

It seemed too ludicrous a question to ask.

But that is exactly what happened.

The Way PPI Was Sold

PPI was sold in different ways but they were all essentially underhand. People often felt they had to buy it so that they got the loan they needed. Or, people were led to believe that it was a fantastic policy that really suited their needs.

But, there were many problems;

• Joint loan holders were surprised to find that PPI only covered one of them, usually discovering this vital piece of information at a time they needed PPI most.
• Other people attempted to make a claim but were told they had to wait 6 months or longer before the policy kicked in, a fact they were unaware of.
• People were not told of the exclusion under the terms and conditions, hence had no idea they couldn't claim if they would no longer work due to a mental health illness or a 'bad back'.
• PPI was also very expensive, offering very little cover to very few people but cost a lot of money.
• The process of making a claim was long and complicated. It took over 12 months for a claim to be processed, with the chances of it being a successful claim were very slim - only 15% of claims against PPI policies were successful compared to 80%+ of car insurance claims.

Many Changes

There have been many changes in the wake of the PPI mis-selling scandal. Banks are no longer allowed to sell additional products at the same time a customer buys a loan or credit card etc.

There have been bigger changes too, such as the Financial Conduct Authority, the 'new' regulator of the banks and lenders. It is a body that now has more powers to control bank behaviour and compel them to put things right.

Do You Have a PPI Compensation Claim?

If you have had a loan or credit card from the mid-1990s onwards, the likelihood is you were mis-sold PPI. And that means you have a claim for PPI compensation - call us today!

What is PPI?

Payment protection insurance (PPI) was a policy that was meant to protect you in the case that you could not make repayments on a loan due to loss of income, either through unemployment or sickness.

What is the problem with PPI?

It was not the golden ticket for the consumer that we thought it was but it was a path paved with gold for the banks, who made up to 80% profit per policy.

The customer, paying for a mightily expensive policy was not covered in a way that they thought they were… but no one knew this until someone pointed out how unfair the policy was.

As a result, thousands of customers found out how useless the PPI policy was. They found that they would have been unable to make a claim, especially in cases such as those who were self-employed or retired. Thousands of other policies were mis-sold for others reasons too.

Banks must now trawl through years' worth of records, find the people they mis-sold PPI to and invite them to make a claim.

What does this mean for you?

It means that if you can prove you were mis-sold PPI, you can claim your money back. This would include;

• All premiums paid
• Interest at 8%
• Any fees and costs
• Commission, if the amount paid was more than 50% of the cost of your PPI policy but you weren't told

"But, I don't have PPI!"

Many people who call us for advice will tell us they have received a letter, it looks genuine enough but how can they make a claim if they don't have a PPI policy.

The truth is simple - if your bank or lender has written to you, somewhere in the past you must have been paying for a PPI policy, you just may not have known it at the time, or now.

This is because some PPI policies were 'sold' to customers in a way that meant the customer had no idea they had bought it. It has simply been added to their account.

This was prevalent in cases where people applied for and were accepted for loans, credit cards and so on, online. The 'opt-in' box for PPI was already ticked at the bottom of the small print and thus, many people did not see it.

Neither were people made aware of the limited amount of cover it offered. In fact, the truth is that if someone had talked through the terms and conditions, highlighting what the policy did not cover, we doubt you would have bought it.

If you think you have a claim for mis-sold PPI why not let Payment Protection Scotland help you make a claim?

Payment protection insurance (PPI) was mis-sold to thousands of people all over the country. Adding significant expense to loans, credit cards, store cards, catalogue accounts and many more credit products, PPI was mis-sold for many reasons.

Here is the countdown of the most 'popular' mis-selling of PPI to customers…

Number 5 - Policies mis-sold to the self-employed, unemployed and retired

Even though PPI is meant to protect repayments when income is lost, the definition of income in terms of those unemployed at the time they were sold PPI, as well as those who were retired is somewhat different to that of a person in employment.

The income stream these two groups have is not considered to be 'economically active' therefore, under PPI they had no income to protect.

In terms of those who were self-employed, they were sold a product that was so complex in terms of claiming on it, that it was almost impossible for them to make a claim.

Would you, for example, close your business if you become unwell? This is what the PPI policy would effectively demand!

Number 4 - Policies mis-sold to people with pre-existing medical conditions

The policy was clear: those suffering from pre-existing medical conditions would not be covered by the policy.

In some cases, the policy also stipulated that they would not cover claims by people unable to work due to mental health illnesses or back problems.

Again, customers were NOT made aware and paid for this expensive policy assuming that the whole of the body was covered, both physical and emotional illnesses.

Number 3 - 'You MUST buy this…' or 'it will really help your application…'

Halfway through our countdown and we see the mis-selling reason turn to playing on the emotional state of the customer.

Applying to borrow money is an emotional decision with far-reaching consequences. If successful, you have a new financial responsibility. If the decision is no, then you have a problem to solve.

And so, it being hinted that your application was more likely to be approved if it is protected by PPI would almost guarantee your purchase of it.

PPI - nor any other product - is compulsory.

Number 2 - The single premium policy

These were all the rage some years ago. Unlike other customers who paid a monthly premium, some people were sold the policy with one lump sum being added to their loan.

Not only adding an expense to the loan, there was also interest charged on this lump sum too. And, to make matters worse, the term of the policy rarely lasted the same length of term as the loan.

AND, in the top spot…

You did NOT know you had PPI! Are you confident you are not a victim of mis-selling?

A PPI policy was mis-sold to you if you didn't…

• know about it
• ask for it or
• need it.

There are a whole host of specific reasons why the PPI policy could have been mis-sold to you. BUT, every case is different and unique to that customer. Although we have listed the main reasons why PPI could have been mis-sold to you, we would need to examine your case in detail so that you have the best chance of getting your money back.

Which of these reasons for mis-selling do you think fit your case?

• You were NOT told about the true cost of the policy
• The policy term was shorter than the term of your loan
• Exclusions were NOT fully explained to you, such as medical exclusions
• Your circumstances meant you would NOT have been able to claim
• You were self-employed and that to claim on the policy, you would effectively have to close your business
• You were NOT told the commission the sales person would receive for selling you the policy - *UPDATE* if commission was more than 50% the cost of the policy and you were not told this, you can claim your money back!
• You were NOT told there were alternative insurance policies available
• You were told you HAD to take out the PPI policy to secure the loan
• You were told that the loan, credit card etc. was ONLY available with PPI
• PPI was included in the loan without you knowing
• You already had existing cover with another policy
• PPI was NOT necessary as you had cover with your employer which was sufficient

The average PPI pay-out is calculated at £2,750, a figure arrived at by dividing the value of the PPI policies sold with the number of people they were sold to. BUT, this figure can be very different as there are many variables that affect cases such as interest rates on credit cards and so on.

Some customers are claiming PPI compensation for policies that date back decades, so don't be swayed by stories of time limits and deadlines. If you had a loan, credit card or mortgage in these last 6 to 12 years, the likelihood is you were mis-sold PPI for one or more reasons outlined above.

PPI compensation for your bank or lendershould put you back into the financial position you would have been in had the PPI policy not been sold to you.This means all your premiums compensated, along with interest and now, commission payments too.

Making a claim

You can make a claim by approaching your bank or lender yourself but with most people having more than one policy, it can be a time-consuming process. With this in mind, you may want Payment Protection Scotland to do the hard work. We charge a fee for our service but with our no win, no fee service, there is no risk to you. Why not call us?

With the Financial Conduct Authority once again throwing light onto the PPI mis-selling scandal with the announcement of a PPI claims deadline, we thought we would take a look at how PPI was mis-sold and on what financial products.

PPI is…

… an insurance policy that was a debt-specific product. It was a policy that should have covered repayments on a loan etc. should you be unable to do so due to ill health, redundancy etc. In other words, when you were unable to continue repayments because you could no longer work.

PPI was mis-sold alongside…

… financial products in which customers borrowed money. There are several credit agreements and products you need to check, including;

• Unsecured loans - also known as personal loans, PPI was often attached to these
• Business loans
• Store cards - similar to a credit card but you used the card in one particular high street shop
• Mortgage
• Second mortgages - for example, if you borrowed a sum of money secured against your home. These loans are sometimes referred to as secured loans.
• Overdraft - an overdraft is a credit facility, albeit a short-term one but you may find PPI was part of this agreement too.
• Car finance or anything else you bought on credit - these products are referred to as a 'finance agreement' or 'hire purchase agreement'
• Home shopping account - this includes any catalogues you may have had too.

PPI was mis-sold because…

• You felt pressured or obligated into buying it - some customers were told they must buy it!
• You were promised a better deal or a cheaper interest rate if you did buy it
• You were given the impression or told you were more likely to be accepted for the loan etc. if you did buy PPI
• It was added to your account without them telling you
• You were self-employed, retired or unemployed at the time it was sold to you (you were not covered by the policy as a result)
• You were told that it did cover pre-existing medical conditions, although it didn't
• You had a pre-existing medical condition but it was still sold to you anyway
• You were not told that when it was added to your account, you would pay interest on both the loan and PPI
• The PPI ran out before the end of the loan but you weren't told this
• You were advised to buy it but you are not sure why

You can make a PPI compensation claim…

… until 29^th August 2019. And that means you need to act now! Why not call our team for more information? There is no obligation and our service is no win, no fee so you get the best deal for you!

It can be confusing attempting to understand if the payment protection insurance (PPI) policy you have, was actually mis-sold to you.

Here we attempt to de-mist some of the fog that can surround making a PPI claim.

#1 What PPI policy?

If you are asking yourself this question, you may be assuming that you don't have a PPI policy because, surely you would know?

But there is a problem and that is, many PPI were 'sold' to customers by the bank or lender simply adding them to your account without you knowing or, writing to you after they linked it to your account, telling you how great it was.

This is wrong on so many levels but in terms of mis-selling, you will not have had the policy, its terms and conditions etc. explained clearly to you.

Our advice - check every credit product, from personal loans to credit cards, for PPI even if you think you don't have a PPI policy at all!

#2 Your employment status

The terms and conditions of PPI were fairly narrow. The only people who were really covered were those in permanent, full time employment working more than 30 hours per week.

If you were or are self-employed, unemployed, retired or working in temporary or zero-hour contracts, then PPI is unlikely to offer you any kind of cover.

#3 Your health status

Thankfully, most of us enjoy good health but when things do go wrong, you need the peace of mind that any insurance policies you have will pay out when they say they will.

With PPI, you don't have this peace of mind. Put simply, the medical conditions it did and did not cover were again, fairly narrow. There were exclusions too and unless these were pointed out to you, you may have taken out the policy completely unaware that it did not and would not cover existing medical conditions.

Neither did some PPI policies cover things like back injuries or conditions, nor mental health illnesses either.

#4 An obligatory product?

When we apply for a loan etc., is it an emotive decision, fuelled on by the need to have the money to change something. It could be something as basic as buying a new boiler and other home improvements, to upgrading the family car to a more reliable one.

This changes how we view things and so when the bank or lender said PPI was compulsory, customers didn't question it. PPI is not compulsory thus, if you were given the impression that it was, then you could have a claim for PPI compensation.

Find out more and start your claim today too, with Payment Protection Scotland.

Are friends, family and work colleagues enjoying their PPI windfalls? Wondering if you have or how you can make a claim? If so, read on…

If you have PPI, the likelihood is you have a claim for compensation. Payment protection insurance (PPI) was mis-sold to thousands of customers. You may know you have PPI - you may have even agreed to it! - but it is also possible there was a PPI policy added to other accounts without you knowing.

Here we re-cap on some of the reasons why PPI is classed as being mis-sold. Which one do you think applied to you?

#1 Your employment status

Your employment status at the time you were sold PPI is important because it has a direct impact on whether PPI is useful or not to you;

• Self-employed - you are unlikely to be covered by a PPI policy or, if you are, the terms and conditions are such that the policy offers little, if any, real cover. For example, some self-employed people, in order to make a claim, would need to close their business down.
• Part-time employment - not all PPI policies covered people who worked less than full time hours every week. Those who worked less than 30 hours a week or, on temporary or zero-hour contracts were unlikely to be covered.
• Unemployed - if you were unemployed, the PPI policy would not cover you.
• Retired - again, if you had no income other than pensions and so on, but not a wage from full time employment, you were unlikely to be covered by a PPI policy.

In most cases, the bank, on looking at your application for a loan, credit card and so on, would have your employment status in front of them. After all, you would have to declare that had the means to pay the money back but, despite knowing your employment status, still sold you a PPI policy, either at the time or later, via a sales phone call.

#2 Your health

Another broad category of mis-selling relates to how much you know or were told about the policy.

For example, were you made aware of what medical conditions and illnesses were and were not covered? Many people were surprised to learn that back problems and mental health issues were not covered by the policy.

Both of these medical conditions are two of the top most reasons why people are unable to work, both in the short and longer term. Imagine the devastation of being too ill to work and one of the insurance policies you were relying on let you down.

There are many reasons why PPI was mis-sold to you. Find out more today with Payment Protection Scotland and you too, could be enjoying a PPI compensation windfall very soon.

Payment protection insurance (PPI) is an infamous insurance product. Thousands of policies were sold to thousands of customers, resulting in banks and lenders acquiring billions of pounds of money that was not theirs to take.

The policy was meant to protect repayments on a debt should the customer be unable to continue to make payments due to a loss of income. This could be because you could no longer work due to a medical condition or illness or you were made redundant.

This sounds like a great product but there were many things wrong with the way that it was sold to people. Youthoughtit was a great product because you assumed that it was therightproduct for you. You trusted the bank to have your best interests at heart, certainly your finances at least.

Unfortunately, they didn't...

#1 Pre-existing medical conditions

Many customers who were sold the policy were not told that it did not cover pre-existing medical conditions. In many ways, when it comes to personal insurance policies it is always wise to check because in many cases, insurance premiums will increase to cover the eventuality of you not being able to work due to this illness.

In the vast majority of cases, a reputable companyshouldflag up these red flags with their customer, highlighting what the policy will and will not cover.  In the case of PPI, this did not happen in thousands of cases.

#2 Not all medical illnesses and conditions were covered

Many customers have been shocked to find that PPI also had a set if illnesses that it would not cover.

For example, if you were off work for a prolonged period due to a back problem, the PPI policy was unlikely to pay out. So no help with loan repayments if you slip a disc.

The policy also didn't cover mental health issues so again, if you were unable to work as a result of crippling depression, you would be disappointed to find that that the policy would not cover your loan repayments.

#3 One or both of you?

In the cases of a joint loan, most customers assumed that the PPI policy they bought into would cover them both; after all, it was a joint application.

Imagine the disappointment and panic of Mr A. when he called the bank to make a claim on the policy only to find it covered his wife only. And because Mrs A. was still working and Mr A. was off work ill that he could not make a claim.

In essence, many customers were not made aware of the various terms and conditions relating to PPI. This meant they bought into an insurance policy that offered them a much lower level of cover than they thought.

But it was their bank who they had banked with for decades, so why would they hoodwink them into buying something that was rubbish?

With so much information - and misinformation - circulating about payment protection insurance (PPI) and how it was mis-sold, it can be easy for people to become apathetic, thinking that 'it doesn't apply to them'.

But the mis-selling of PPI affected thousands of people and with the possibility of a 2018 PPI deadline on the cards, it is important to make sure that you are confident you are not a victim of this mis-selling scam.

With this in mind, we have created a list of the top eight reasons why PPI was mis-sold to customers.

#1 You were pressured into buying a PPI policy

Many people felt that when they were applying for a loan, credit card and so on, that there were effectively pressured into buying a policy. Many people were told or given the impression that without it, their application stood no chance of being successful.

#2 You were given the impression that PPI was compulsory

A bank may ask that you buy a policy to protect their investment but they cannot stipulate that it has to be their own. PPI was a policy that was available from other sources, usually at a lower cost.

#3 You were advised to buy PPI but it was not suitable

Since this saga has started, it has become clear that some people were advised to buy PPI even when it was clear it was not a suitable policy. In cases of advised sales, banks and financial advisers know have to put down the reasons of an advised sale in writing.

#4 It was a condition of the loan

There are also cases where PPI was 'part and parcel' of applying for a loan. Again, this means that PPI was unsuitable for a vast number of people.

#5 Added without your knowledge

Many customers were also surprised to find that PPI was added to their accounts without their knowledge.

#6 Exclusions were not explained

PPI was a policy that had a narrow set of terms and conditions, meaning it was unsuitable for many people. In many cases, these exclusions were not explained thus leading people to believe they were covered when they were not.

#7 It was not made clear you were paying interest on PPI being added to your loan

PPI was expensive for the little cover that it offered a few people. The addition of PPI to a loan made it far more expensive, leading to some people into financial difficulties.

#8 It was not made clear that PPI cover finished before the term of the loan

Most PPI policies lasted 5 years, even when the loan was over 10 years meaning if you had tried to claim, you may have found the policy had ended.

Do you have PPI? Do you want to claim your money back? Contact Payment Protection Scotland today. 

How to find out if you were mis-sold PPI and how to claim your money back!

Step 1 - Find the PPI policy

The first step you need to take to find out if you have a PPI policy on any of your credit cards, loans (secured and unsecured), store cards, car finance and any other kind of finance product.

You are looking for an insurance policy that promises or suggests that it will make repayments on the loan etc. should you be unable to due to being too ill to work, made redundant and so on.

In most cases, customers paid for this as a separate premium but it may be included as part of your monthly repayment.

Have you found PPI? Move to Step 2!

Step 2 - Proving mis-selling

Even though you have PPI, there is not an automatic entitlement for getting your money back. You need to show or to prove that the policy was mis-sold to you.

There are many reasons why PPI was mis-sold to customers:

• You were pressured into buying the PPI policy
• It was not made clear that the purchase of PPI was optional
• You were advised to take out PPI but were not given clear reasons why it was suitable
• You thought that by buying PPI, your application would be seen in a more favourable light
• The exclusions, such as pre-existing medical conditions were not explained to you
• It was added to your loan or credit card etc. without your knowledge
• You didn't know that you would pay interest in the amount PPI added to your loan
• It was not made clear that PPI cover would end before the loan would, leaving you without cover for the remaining number of years on the loan

You don't have to choose one of the above - in effect, all of them could apply your case.

You may have more than one claim for PPI as it could be linked to several accounts!

Step 3 - Make the claim yourself

You can contact your bank or lender, tell them you have PPI and that you believe it was mis-sold to you. Many banks and lenders now have a form that you can download from their website and submit your claim that way.

OR…

Ask Payment Protection Scotland to take the case and make the claim or claims, on your behalf.

Like other professional services, we charge a fee to use our expert services but with our team working on your case, you can be confident that we are doing everything we can to secure not only a successful outcome, but the right level of compensation. Contact Payment Protection Scotland now!