A quick guide to payment protection insurance claims
- 20TH JUNE 2007
As more and more people have expressed their dissatisfaction with payment protection insurance (PPI) policies, providers have been inundated with claims.
As with anything in society, payment protection insurance inspired the bandwagon effect. It only took one or two policyholders to set the wheels in motion and now millions are rolling down the hill! Claiming is all well and good if you are eligible and know the best channels to claim through, but all too many individuals do not.
Claims firms have advertised extensively in the press, boasting that they can successfully claim any money an individual is owed back from the provider that mis-sold them their payment protection policy in the first place. Their adverts are extremely appealing and unfortunately, too many individuals are taken in by it all.
No-win no-fee firms tend to dazzle potential customers and have them sign before they really know anything about the process. As a result policyholders can end up finding that a huge chunk of their compensation will actually go to the claims firm as payment. This can be as much as 25%. This is most definitely unethical, and there are ways and means around using a claims firm to do very little work for such a high fee.
Simon Burgess, of the ethical payment protection insurance specialists British Insurance, gives potential claimants the best possible advice: “We have had more than 100 people contact us for help and without exception we have advised them all to take their case directly to the Financial Ombudsman Service.”
Last year Simon was planning to set up his own Compensation Claims firm, but having seen how other firms are operating and how a lot are “ripping off” customers, hedecided to shelve his plans.
