Crucial advice for getting your payment protection insurance repaid with ease

I wish their was insurance on time, after spending an hour on writing a previous version of this blog, onto for a box to appear: ‘Leave the page’ or ‘stay on page.’ I pressed ‘stay on page.”stay on page.”stay on page.”stay on page.”stay on page.”stay on page.”stay on page.”stay on page.”stay on page.”stay on page.”stay on page.”stay on page.”stay on page.”stay on page.”stay on page.”stay on page.”stay on page,’ until I must have pressed wrong option (option???) and it obliterated my work. Cheers.

Nuisance Call

The phone rings. I’m sifting through Tweets anyway so I answer it and there’s a pause. Then a voice says ‘An Urgent Message on your payment protection policy.’ I think using the word your, suggesting something I own, something in my possession, something that exists even, when this is not the case, should be illegal. If words used can be proven to be false, there should be a custodial sentence. That would stop the increasing piles of bollocks being written and said by companies.

I claimed a payment protection policy that I had been mis-sold with a loan back in 2004. It was easy, quick, satisfying and fun. Also, I got some money I hadn’t expected to see again. The reason for this is I worked on insurance magazines.

Check out my radio show on thesourcefm at 7.30pm on Sunday evenings, for a useful hour on consumer power. Also, there are some issues of insurance magazines I have produced on my editorial services page.

I do not have a payment protection policy. Would I speak to someone about it who can’t even be bothered to find out if I have one before telling me I can be repaid it? No way. Who takes these calls and does business with these companies? STOP IT NOW. Read these points below:

• If you have been told you cannot get finance unless you buy an insurance policy to protect the lender, you have been missold this insurance.
• If you were not in steady employment, with a reasonable salary, in a job you had been in for at least 6 months, without any signs of the company going belly up, or you being made redundant, you were missold the insurance.
• If you were told to get a loan or took out a credit card, and payment insurance was included without you being able to opt in to it, ie it was added to your bill and then interest was charged on this, you will be repaid that money. Yes, this happened to me a few times.
• It is, as you know, illegal for lenders to sell a payment protection insurance without checking that you meet all the criteria of eligibility to claim, should the occasion arise.

If you have bought a Paymenet Protection insurance, you can go to your lender and ask for it back, please. How? There are various ways, but essentially you need to find out how much you’ve paid on PPI and how much interest has been charged. One of these options will help. Remember, your lender will have the figure easily attainable on their system, but you want to check they are parting with the correct amount.  With me, they tried to withhold the interest, but I challenged them and it was repaid.

• Get out your loan or credit card paperwork, which will show that you were sold PPI.
• Take this to your lender and say you want to be repaid this insurance, please.
• If they quibble, which I think they won’t, say you will go to the Financial Ombudsman and make a complaint about them.
• You can say that
  • You were not eligible for the insurance
  • You were not asked questions to check you were eligible (if you were actually)
  • You were told that you had to buy the insurance to get the finance.
  • The insurance was added without your knowledge, ie you had to opt out rather than opt in. The insurance was added to your loan, mortgage or credit card bill.
  • The conditions of the insurance were not laid out clearly to you.
  • You could go to your online banking service, open the account you repay your lender from, download a statement and then do a sort by the column which shows who you are paying. This will tell you exactly how much you will get back.

Mobile Phone Insurance:

As insurance is a bit like gambling or investing, only you can work out if mobile phone insurance is worth it for you. Ask yourself:

• How many times have I lost a mobile phone?
• If I have, has my insurance provided me with another one?
• If I am serial mobile phone mislayer, do I get a replacement more than once a year?
• Do I pay for a bank account? This info is old, so I am sure you know your bank probably provides free mobile insurance.

Once, when I first had a mobile phone, I worked out that if I bought insurance at £11 a month, and lost my phone once, paid the excess, I would have saved 50p, had I not bought insurance and paid for a reconstituted phone.

All you need to do with insurance is treat it like a flutter on the horses. Have fun asking yourself what it costs, when you had needed it before, how much it saved you, could you claim, what other benefits came with it, how was it sold to me?