Our handy guide to how to claim for PPI with the deadline now just five days away
IF you are one of the millions of people yet to make your rightful PPI claim, now is the time to do it – or risk missing a payout of thousands of pounds. Time is running out to make a claim — the deadline is this Thursday at 11.59pm. People are rushing to make claims, […]
IF you are one of the millions of people yet to make your rightful PPI claim, now is the time to do it – or risk missing a payout of thousands of pounds.
Time is running out to make a claim — the deadline is this Thursday at 11.59pm.
People are rushing to make claims, with the Financial Conduct Authority’s PPI help website reporting a 420 per cent surge in users during the past eight weeks.
Not sure how to claim? Just follow our guide.
WHAT IS PPI?
PPI — or Payment Protection Insurance — was added to finance products like credit cards, store cards, personal loans, car loans and mortgages between 1980 and 2010.
It was meant to protect people if they could not keep up with their payments due to illness or unemployment. But it was widely mis-sold. People were pressured into buying it or did not know they had it, or it may have been unsuitable for their circumstances.
Some were sold policies that would never pay out because they were self-employed or retired and others were told it was compulsory.
All of this led to the biggest financial scandal in modern times, for which lenders have set aside £45billion to pay out in compensation.
So far only about £35billion has been paid to claimants.
DID I HAVE PPI?
THINK about the finance products you have had since the 1980s and try and remember who they were with.
Check these against the FCA’s list, on its website, of providers who sold PPI.
If you still have the paperwork, look for terms such as “payment cover”, “protection plan”, “ASU” (accident, sickness and unemployment cover), “loan protection,” “retail payment protection” or “loan care”. All basically mean PPI.
If you had PPI, it is likely you were mis-sold it and are due compo. So try your luck.
HOW DO I CLAIM?
DON’T be taken in by all the telly ads pushing to take on your PPI claim — they will take up to a third of your payout, for work you could do yourself.
Try Resolver or Which’s free PPI tools.
They will ask you basic details such as which provider you want to claim against, what type of product you had such as a mortgage, credit card or loan, and former addresses.
The more detail you can input, the better.
But if you have lost your old paperwork, it doesn’t matter. Lenders should be able to find your policy details if you give your name and address at the time of the sale.
Your claim will then be sent to the provider, who will contact you directly. The process is likely to take around eight weeks.
The textbook case
CHRISTINA Goddard, 59, from Warrington, Cheshire, took out a £10,000 loan for home improvements in 2004 from Liverpool Victoria and was charged for PPI, though she didn’t want it.
The health and safety consultant said: “I applied over the phone and I remember telling them I didn’t want PPI, as we had other insurance to cover any fall in income. Annoyingly, when the paperwork came through, PPI had been added.
“I called to complain but was told I had to have it. So I signed the form and that was that.”
After finding the old paperwork in a drawer, she made a claim through the Resolver website, getting back £860. Statutory interest took that to £1,700. Chrstina is putting the money towards new windows.
REFUND: £1,700
No paperwork
FORMER bookkeeper Brian Goody, 71, from Coggeshall in Essex, got an £18,000 refund despite having no paperwork.
Brian took out six loans with Lloyds in the Eighties but couldn’t remember much about them. He had no recollection of being sold PPI. After hearing about the deadline, he used the free claim tool run by Which?.
At first, it didn’t look promising. When Lloyds sent him a 12-page questionnaire asking him to complete a claim for each policy he held, Brian gave up. But a month later, Lloyds offered him a £18,346.67 refund on four of the loans.
He said: “I was staggered. I felt dumbstruck, over the moon.”
REFUND: £18,000
Biggest payouts
A RETIRED couple were able to pay off their remaining mortgage and all of their debts after receiving a £175,000 refund, according to MoneySavingExpert.
The unnamed pair were delighted to receive four separate payouts totalling a whopping £175,398 to compensate for missold PPI on various cards and a loan.
The biggest single payout was £74,901 from Barclaycard, for PPI on a credit card taken out back in October 1996.
Another couple, from Devon, reclaimed £153,000 between them after they were missold 12 separate policies for numerous credit cards and loans.
REFUND: £175,000
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Used a claims firm
RICHARD Williams, 64, from Brecon, Powys, lost more than £1,000 of his PPI payout to a claims firm.
He held Barclaycard credit cards at various times since the early Eighties and suspected he had been missold PPI.
Richard asked Barclays to check his previous cards but was told he was not due compensation. He then turned to a claims management firm to double-check on his behalf, prompting the bank to look again.
Barclays awarded him £3,860 but a little over £1,000 went to the claims company. He later got the sum back from Barclays after intervention from Mr Money.
REFUND: £3,900
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