What is PPI?

If you have a mortgage, a loan or a credit card then you may also have a Payment Protection Insurance policy (a PPI policy).

Also known as Accident, Sickness and Unemployment cover (ASU), Life & Accident, Sickness and Unemployment cover (Life & ASU), Mortgage Payment Protection Insurance (MPPI), Personal Loan Protection (PLP) or Credit Card Repayment Protection (CCRP), these policies are often sold alongside your credit card, loan or mortgage.

These policies are intended to pay the customer's credit-card or loan should the customer become unemployed or ill and become unable to pay the monthly amounts themselves.

Many companies sold these policies without informing the clients they were optional, without fully assessing the client's employment status or medical history and in many cases this has led to the client being sold a policy they could never claim on.

Why can I claim?

PPI insurance has been found to have been frequently mis-sold by the Financial Services Authority. If it was mis-sold to you then you can make a claim to get back the proportion of your monthly loan or credit-card payments that represented the PPI payments, plus interest. There are many reasons why PPI may have been mis-sold to you in the first place but the main reasons behind making a claim are described below.

Were you told it was a compulsory part of the loan?  If so, you may well have been mis-sold the policy.  PPI is an optional extra and cannot be included as a requirement of taking out a loan or credit card.  Although a PPI policy can be a good idea and an excellent form of insurance, under the correct circumstances and at the correct cost, it is optional and you do have the right to say ‘no I don’t want it’.

Were you even aware that you had taken out PPI when you took on the loan? Some credit-card companies, particularly certain store-cards, contained a box that you had to tick if you wanted to opt-out of taking PPI cover. This was sometimes hidden amongst the small print and, whilst under the pressure of trying to fill in an application form whilst still in the store, easy to miss. The Financial Services Authority has since clamped down on this and new credit-card applications require the customer to opt-in if they want PPI.

If your loan was for consolidation, and you were sold a PPI policy which had the entire premium added up-front to the loan, it was probably mis-sold. This is because if the loan was for consolidation, it was quite likely you might require flexibility in the future for further consolidation and single-premium policies are notoriously inflexible.

When you take out a PPI policy there are certain circumstances under which you cannot make a claim, known as exclusions, and if you were unemployed, a student, retired or self-employed when you took out the policy you may have not been able to make a claim under any circumstances. 

What will I have to do?

Just phone our office on 0845 4568668 or use the online application form and we'll send you some paperwork. Just sign the paperwork and return it to us in the freepost envelope provided and we’ll do the rest!

Will I have to go to court?

It's extremely unlikely. In exceptional cases we might need you to attend court in order to explain what your lender's salesperson said but we're always there with you and if you can always decide to abandon your claim if it gets to that stage. We've processed hundreds of cases so far and nobody has been needed in court.

Do you need my loan and credit-card agreements?

No we don't, but it does help to speed things up. We can write to your lender and use the law provided by the Data Protection Act to force them to send us a copy of your loan agreement. Companies are usually pretty slow in responding to these requests however so if you do still have some paperwork then send it in as you'll get your money back sooner.

How much can I claim?

You can claim back mis-sold PPI costs plus interest for the last six years. Of course, we figure this all out for you. To get an idea of how much you might be able to claim, use our claims estimator form.

Can I do this myself?

The simple answer to this is that, yes you can. Be aware though that it can be time-consuming and some claimants find the process intimidating - some lenders can be fairly aggressive in their letters and our advice would be to not give up!

How long does it take?

This very much depends on how long the lender takes to respond to us and whether they agree the policy was mis-sold. Around a quarter of our claims are settled in direct negotiation with the lender in two to three months. Those that need to be taken on to the Financial Ombudsman or courts can take up to 9 months longer.

How much does it cost?

For our web-clients (who have applied directly to us via the web or by calling us direct), we charge a special rate of 20% of the money reclaimed + VAT, which equates to 24%. We don't charge you a penny up-front and of course if we don't win your case, there is absolutely nothing to pay under any circumstances.