Mis-Selling Of Payment Protection And Life Cover Policies
Summary
The ways in which the insurance market is dealing with mis-sold life insurance policies. The difficultiesconnected to payment protection policies are emphasized.
The mis-selling of Life Insurance policies by a sizeable number of mortgage lenders has to be addresseddealt with|tackled} by the Government. Steps have been taken by the DTI, who have nearly completed their enquiriesinto the tie in of home insurance with mortgages. A press releasebarring the practice is Mr Southgoes on saying that while providers may not insist on customers taking out life insurance , they can be convinced that they do not have a choice, through the provider being economical with the truth.
60% of life cover is sold by mortgageproviders, although it can be purchased through independent advisers or direct providers.
Then again a DTI spokesman has said that their investigation continues into a massive range of insurance tie-ins. A lender who met Geoff Hoon has said that life insurance has been given a fleeting look, whereas more emphasis has been centred on home and contents.
The trouble with consumers being forced to buy uncompetitive life insurance and home and contents insurance plans is equally important for both commodities.
The problems are especially serious with PPI. Around half of all customers who have been persuaded to take out a PPI may have been sold the wrong type of insurance. Plus the majority of those who bought one of these suspect insurances expect a lot more than they would actually collect if they could not pay their bills.
A wide-ranging study has found that around 26% of the population believe that they will get a monthly wage from their Payment Protection Insurance policy, rather than understanding the policy would only cover their debts.
Another 15% said they believed the policy would protect them if they if they were unable to meet their repayment obligations for any reason, and 7 percent said they thought| their medical expenses would be paid if they became sick.
Many people thought the insurance would go on indefinitely to meet their outstanding debts, others thought their insurance would cover breakdowns and living expenses.
Yearly sales of Payment Protection Insurance policies are said to generate payments of about £5.4bn for the finance business. However an amazing 3 9 billion pounds of this is said to be pure profit. Investigations suggest that several banks charge up to 600 per cet more than others for a comparable product.
The Office of Fair Trading is examining the sale of PPI preceding objections from Citizens Advice and the National Consumer Council. It recently highlighted concerns that banks are enticing customers by advertising apparently cheap loans and then hammering them with massive additional costs by selling expensive PPIas part of the deal.
As a consequence, a loan which appears to give good value can end up being far more costly.