The Financial Reader

I received this excellent guest post that will be helpful to readers in the UK:

Every year, thousands of UK citizens are mis-sold insurance. For insurance companies selling PPI, mis-sold policy claims are common.

In the event of you receiving a notification of some sort about being mis-sold PPI, you need to know what this means and what you’re caught up in.

To explain briefly, PPI is payment protection insurance, which covers any payments that need to be made by a policy holder, who cannot make them personally due to sickness or unemployment.

PPI isn’t a scam, as many legitimately need the policy, but it doesn’t apply to everyone’s situation; if they are self-employed or retired, for example.

Most people making claims to win back money paid for PPI were sold it as part of another insurance policy, which is why it’s hard to tell whether or not you have it. However, a new ruling has helped many discover what they have been sold.

Passed in May 2011, the ruling means High street banks now have to search through their records to make sure every PPI policy was sold with the policy holders consent and, if not, they have inform the holders.

First and foremost, the point of contact made by your bank will be made by a phone call or a letter in the post. Anything by email is likely to be spam.

The message from the bank is likely to tell you about PPI and when you were mis-sold it, before telling you how to reclaim your premium.

Now, different banks will opt for their own approach, but the instructions of how to claim compensation should be fairly straightforward.

If you haven’t received a letter, this doesn’t mean that you cannot claim for being mis-sold PPI, but it does mean that the bank had nothing to do with the mis-selling.

If you didn’t received a letter but you suspect that you’ve been mis-sold a policy, consult one of the many online PPI reclaiming guides, listing all the rules and regulations for salespeople, also giving you an idea of who can be sold it.

To start a claim against a company, send a letter to them containing your case and why you believe you were mis-sold PPI.

If this claim is rejected, then go about writing another letter to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS), again, explaining your case, your recent rejection and take it from there.