PPI Victims To Be Refunded Over 4bn

It has recently emerged that banks and insurance companies could be liable to pay over 4bn to customers who were fooled into paying for Payment Protection Insurance on a loan, mortgage or credit. A previous estimate of up to 1.2bn only covered customers who will attempt to reclaim the payments they have made but this new figure takes into consideration the extra amount of customers who the banks will be forced to give refunds to.

A huge number of overpriced policies were sold to customers who had no hope of claiming if they needed to. Policies were sold to pensioners, the self-employed and those with long term medical conditions who, by definition, were ineligible for cover.

An approximation by the FSA shows that insurance brokers may have to pay up to 450m with the rest being paid by a variety of PPI suppliers such as banks. The average amount repayable to those who purchased policies is 2000 which is a significant amount and has sparked large consumer interest.

The FSA has already begun to make examples of leading high street banks by fining them as well as forcing them to offer refunds to all of the eligible customers. Leading insurance broker ‘The Swinton Group’ were fined 770,000 for serious failings and agreed to offer a full refund to over 350,000 customers while Alliance & Leicester were fined 7m.

There are plans to regulate and control the future sale of policies, a move which is strongly opposed by financial giants. The FSA aims to prevent companies using hard-sell tactics to pressure customers into taking out useless policies. Chairman for the Financial Services Consumer Panel, Adam Phillips, says that “for too long banks have regarded PPI as an easy product to sell and make money without considering whether it is really right for the customer

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