Understanding PPI claims
Payment Protection Insurance, or PPI, is an insurance policy that aims to provide you with coverage by taking care of your monthly payments on loans, credit cards, and the like when you are unable to do so, be it because of lack of employment or sickness. For convenience, a PPI policy is usually taken out alongside a loan, but it may also be taken out at another time. Payment Protection Insurance is very practical to have because you’ll never know what will happen in the future but a lot of people deem this insurance policy to be unnecessary, subscribing to the “crossing the bridge when they get there” kind of thinking. After all, PPI is not cheap. A lot of people are already struggling to keep up with their loan payments alone so it’s simply irrational to take on new expenses by taking out a PPI policy.
What are these PPI claims you are hearing about?
Claims arise whenever PPI is considered to have been mis sold. And PPI is mis sold if in any way you are paying for Payment Protection Insurance that you don’t want, don’t need, or don’t offer you the kind of protection you are looking for. The worst kind of mis-selling though is when you don’t know that you are paying for PPI, happening when lenders simply tack on payment protection as part of your loan automatically without advising you or getting your consent. Other times lenders can force you to take out a Payment Protection Insurance policy even if you didn’t want to by saying you can’t take out a loan without a PPI policy. Since you need that loan, of course, you won’t have a choice but to accept the lender’s terms.
What can you do about them?
If you have anything on your monthly statements that you can’t explain, don’t rush into any conclusions just yet and file for a PPI claim. Talk to your lender first for clarifications. If your lender admits that you’re looking at PPI and you’re pretty sure that you didn’t agree to having a PPI policy, then you can file for a claim. The first step towards filing a claim is ensuring that you are eligible to file one. If you’re not sure if you’re eligible, you can ask help from claims companies. There are a lot of claims companies out there and a number of them are available online so you shouldn’t have too much trouble finding one to help you with a PPI claim.
