Thursday, 29 March 2012

How do you check your claim for PPI compensation is within your legal rights?

By Trinny French


Many loans are taken out by many people but recently it has come to light that alongside the loan, Banks were erroneously selling PPI insurance to cover for a change in the customer's circumstances to ensure the monthly payments were still met. There are some circumstances when taking out PPI insurance is the right thing to do. This is only appropriate for a small number of customers and in a recent court case, insurance companies lost their attempt to side step their responsibility and now have to face up to the financial cost of compensating thousands of people to whom they miss-sold the insurance.

Customers need to prove that they were miss-sold the insurance. You would not have been able to make a claim if for example, you were not in full time, permanent employment at the time you took out the loan. A lot of self employed people have fallen into this category and have legitimate reasons to apply for compensation.

If when you requested cancellation of the insurance you don't think that you received a fair deal, then you can also make a claim for compensation. If the loan company offered you an increase in premium when you declined the insurance then you could be due for a refund of premiums with interest.

Don't forget that it is the insurance company that underwrote the PPI insurance and not the Bank per se that you need to make a claim against. They will not give up their finance easily so you need to check out if your circumstances fall under the list compiled by the FSA. You then need to contact the bank or loan provider directly. Guardian Money has produced a template letter that you could use. If you don't receive a satisfactory reply within 8 weeks, then you are entitled to take your claim to the Financial Ombudsman Service.

Don't think that you have to use a claims management company. The process of submitting a claim is very simple. You will find various versions of a template letter online. For example Guardian Money has produced a suitable template. You just need to apply directly to the Insurance company (not the bank unless they were responsible for the insurance also). Claims management companies are out to make a profit. Don't let them take your compensation as their fees; you could be left in dept rather than in profit. If you receive a 'final response' letter and you are still dissatisfied then you have a further 6 months to take your complaint to the ombudsman.




About the Author:



No comments:

Post a Comment