You’ve probably already heard about the PPI fiasco with banks. For some reason they thought they could get away with selling customers a deal that got them next to no real insurance on their loans, while charging them premium rates for it. The theory was that you should be covered if you have an accident or illness that prevents you from paying debts, or something to give you some leeway if you became unemployed. The practice was very different.
The initial thing that caused concern and complaints was the fact that people often couldn’t claim on their PPI, because of some fine print that excluded them. But this turned out to be only the tip of the ice berg. It was found out that banks had sold people PPI polices without the customer being aware. Also, people weren’t told how much they could expect to pay, or were forced into taking PPI because they thought it was necessary to take out a loan (that’s how the bank put it across at least).
Banks are overwhelmed at the moment. The Financial Ombudsman Service, who deal with the majority of claims free of charge, have observed a doubling of the amount of people claiming on their PPI. The figure for 2010 to 2011 stood at around 100,000 people, and that’s still only a fraction of the people that are likely to claim. Banks have compounded the issue by refusing to cooperate, meaning they contest every case individually, despite not having enough staff to cope with the influx of cases.
But it’s not to say that they aren’t going to be able to pay out. All banks have taken on more staff, and set aside provisional funds to be able to pay off these debts. Barclays for example have one billion pounds devoted just to PPI repayments, so the funds are there to make sure that everyone gets compensated, but they’re not going to hand over any money without making people jump through hoops for it. That means that anyone filing a PPI complaint shouldn’t expect money back for a while.
That means you should get in touch with an ombudsman, or some other advisor as soon as possible.
If you’ve been mis-sold PPI you could be eligible to make a claim. Find out more.