There is no doubt that PPI can be a very useful product
. If you are ill it is designed to cover loan repayments, credit card payments and even mortgage payments. Unfortunately lenders have been abusing the sale of PPI and selling it to customers who won't be covered by exclusions - leaving millions in the UK out of pocket
One of the ways lenders have mis sold PPI is to add it into people's loans or credit cards without them ever knowing what they have purchased. Often it is buried in small print, customers end up paying for a PPI policy that won't cover them.
This can seriously increase the total of the loan and the money owed by the client which they will then struggle to repay. One way that banks make people take out PPI is by telling them that their loan or credit card application will fail unless they take out PPI. This type of PPI mis selling is against regulations (PPI is always optional).
If you have a job or are retired and not suffering any long term illness, PPI may not be of any use to you. Should any of these situations arise, there are usually so many exclusion clauses (self employed, bad backs to name a few) that only 18% of policies ever pay out.
The terms of this cover do not provide for pre-existing illnesses in most cases. This makes the policy worthless to people with pre-existing conditions as when they try to claim they will be refused. This systematic mis selling of PPI is one of the biggest scams in the banking industry and has destroyed a lot of the faith many people had in the whole financial system.
Now the extent of mis sold PPIs has come to light lenders are under serious pressure to refund customers their money. If you were told you had to have PPI or were mis sold the policy for a number of other reasons then you could claim back your money. If you don't know where to start then you could take advantage of one of the specialist PPI claim handling companies. They have a lot of experience dealing with lenders and filing complaints with the relevant authorities. This can be a very useful service especially if you are a very busy person or your case if very complicated.