Payment Protection Insurance (PPI) Our successes
Ms SI have been offered a full refund of premiums and interest paid on them, they didn't contest - I'm so grateful to Which?. Thank you
We have been at the forefront of campaigning to see an end to poor value financial protection products. We created a PPI complaint tool which enables consumers to get the redress they deserve when they have been mis-sold payment protection insurance (PPI).
Our relentless campaigning has put consumers' needs and experiences at the forefront of reforms to this market, and we continue to fight for, and support, better quality protection products.
Successes so far
- We fought for and won new guidelines for business about how they should handle PPI complaints. This means all providers will have to take a more consistent approach to dealing with complaints, giving consumers more clarity about what redress they can expect to receive.
Ms PI was tempted to use a 3rd party to make a claim on my behalf, but they all wanted monies up front of up to £500 with no guarantees, so decided to give it a try with your helpful guide, which has reaped its reward.
'Single premium' PPI was banned by the Competition Commission after a long campaign by consumer groups including Which?. This practice involved loading the total cost of a PPI policy on top of the funds being drawn down by a borrower, so that he or she would have to pay interest on the cost of the insurance, as well as interest on their loan.
In 2009 we set up our online complaints tool, enabling consumers to pursue a complaint to their PPI provider and claim money back. Since its launch the tool has facilitated the submission of more than 20,000 complaints.
After we spotted that Ulster bank were selling PPI alongside their student credit card online, the bank agreed to remove the information from their website. This means that students with this credit card are no longer at risk of wasting money on a policy that they could never claim on.
- We successfully campaigned for the government to activate the FSA's power to force lenders to review rejected PPI cases so consumers whose complaints were wrongly dismissed can get the redress they are due.
- We lobbied the British Bankers' Association to ask them not to appeal against the outcome of the judicial review. We were delighted when they announced they weren't going to appeal.
More work to be done
There's still further work to be done, so we continue to lobby on behalf of those who have been mis-sold PPI, and to prevent any more policies being sold incorrectly.
We're also calling on the government to activate the FSA's power to force lenders to review rejected PPI cases so consumers whose complaints were wrongly dismissed can get the redress they are due.
- Protection insurance explained - we explore the alternatives to poor-value PPI
- Income protection - a key protection product to consider if you're unable to work through illness
- Redundancy - your rights if you're laid off from work, including details of redundancy pay
