Payment Protection Insurance, or PPI, is supposed to cover your debt repayments if you become ill, have an accident or are made redundant. It is a controversial product because growing numbers of people are successfully claiming compensation on the grounds that their PPI was mis-sold to them.
Many people associate Payment Protection Insurance with personal loans and hire purchase agreements, but don’t realise that Payment Protection Insurance can also relate to other types of credit product, including mortgages.
Although in recent years the selling of Payment Protection Insurance has come under increasing scrutiny and rules have been significantly tightened, prior to this many mortgage companies were making use of sales tactics and practices which were unfair and wholly unconscionable.
This often included telling consumers that their loan would not be approved if they did not take out a PPI policy to cover repayments then and there, or leading consumers to believe that the PPI policy offered by the mortgage provider was suitable for their circumstances and would fully cover their mortgage repayments in all cases.
However, in the vast majority of cases these PPI policies are completely unsuitable for the consumer. Harsh restrictions written into the terms of the policy mean that consumers will not be able to make a claim unless they were in full time permanent work at the time they purchased the policy, and have never suffered from any illness or medical condition, including stress related absences from work or back ache.
Often consumers were NOT told of these onerous/stressful/demanding requirements at the time they purchased the PPI cover, and so are unaware that their PPI policy is useless until they try to claim the benefit of it.
If our clients have been sold a Payment Protection Insurance policy alongside their mortgage then they should make a claim as soon as possible. If the policy was unsuitable for them, or was mis-sold for some other reason, then we may be able to win them a refund of all of the PPI premiums which they have paid, plus interest.