PPI

A deadline for PPI complaints

• Complain to the business you think is responsible. The deadline for complaining is 29 August 2019. 
• If you try to make a new complaint about PPI after this date, you might find you’ve left it too late and the business may say they won’t look into your complaint.
• Other time limits might apply - so if you think you’ve got a complaint, act as soon as possible.
• If the business agrees something went wrong, you should get compensation.
• If you don’t agree with the business’s answer, you can contact us. You need to do this within six months of the business’s response.

What is PPI?

PPI is a type of insurance that was sold with loans, credit cards, mortgages and other types of credit, like car finance or catalogue accounts. It was designed to make credit repayments that someone might not be able to make if they were unable to work. For example, if you had PPI and then couldn’t work because you were ill or made redundant, you could have made a claim. Depending on what your policy covered, it would pay some or all of your credit repayments for a certain amount of time.

If you had PPI, there are different ways you might have paid for it, depending on what it was sold with. On some loans, the whole cost of the PPI premium was added upfront to the amount borrowed. The borrower would then pay it off over the term of the loan, including interest added to the premium. This type of ‘single premium’ PPI policy was banned in 2009, and shouldn’t have been sold after that.

On other loans, including mortgages, borrowers mostly paid for PPI by a ‘monthly premium’. This is where the PPI was paid for in monthly instalments separate from the credit it was bought with and interest wasn’t charged on it. PPI policies sold with credit cards were normally paid for by monthly premiums, which were added to the monthly card balance. The cost of the premium was a percentage of the total balance owed for that month, and if the balance wasn’t repaid, then interest would be added. If a claim was paid out, the monthly benefit was a percentage of what was owed.

How do I know if I’ve had PPI?

If you’ve ever had any of these products in the past, it’s possible you were sold PPI with them: 

• credit cards
• store cards
• mortgages
• personal and secured loans
• flexible loans
• business loans
• overdrafts
• hire-purchase agreements (for example, on a car)
• catalogue shopping accounts
• point of sale loans (for example, for furniture or appliances)

If you’ve still got your credit agreements or statements, you can check if PPI is mentioned on them. Some businesses used different names for PPI, which may include:

• credit card repayments cover
• credit repayment protector
• mortgage repayments protector
• mortgage care
• creditcare
• loanguard
• payment protection cover
• creditguard

If you’re still not sure if you had PPI, get in touch with the business you think is responsible to find out. In some cases, the business might not agree that you had PPI.

This might happen if: 

• their records don’t show that a policy was sold
• the credit was taken out so long ago there are no records about it
• they don’t have enough information to track down the details of a PPI policy

If a business has already told you that you didn’t have PPI - but you’re not sure they’re right, contact us.

Types of complaints we see

Some of the most common complaints about mis-sold PPI are from customers who: 

• weren’t aware they had the policy
• didn’t want the policy
• felt pressured into taking out the policy – for example, they were told that if they didn’t take out PPI, they wouldn’t get a credit card
• were advised to take out a policy that was unsuitable – for example, they were self-employed, but they were advised to take out a policy that was difficult for self-employed people to claim on
• weren’t made aware of the main things the policy didn’t cover – for example, if it didn’t cover a medical condition they already had

Plevin case and commission

If you’ve already complained about PPI but didn’t get a refund, you might be able to complain again about something else - undisclosed commission. A court case known as Plevin found that in some cases, if the business was paid a lot of commission and it didn’t tell the consumer, it might have been unfair. 

After this case, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) published new rules and guidance relating to the commission earned on a PPI sale. The rules say if this commission made up over half of the cost of the PPI, and this wasn’t made clear, the lender should give some of this money back to the consumer.

You might be able to complain about commission if:

• you took out the credit the PPI was sold with (for example, a loan or credit card) on or after 6 April 2007
• you took out the credit the PPI was sold with before 6 April 2007, and it was still running on or after 6 April 2008

Not everyone who complains about PPI will be affected. If you’ve already had a full refund, then there’s no need to complain about commission. You’ve already had everything back that you paid.

What we look at

We look at your individual circumstances and decide if the business acted unfairly when they sold you PPI based on the information we have. We’ll usually look at whether:

• it was made clear to you that the policy was optional
• any important limits to what the policy covered were explained
• the costs and benefits of the policy were made clear
• any advice you were given was right for you
• you could have made a claim on the policy you had, and
• if things had happened properly, you would not have chosen to take out the policy 

The information we look at might include:

• paperwork from the time the policy was taken out
• what you and the business say about what happened
• the business’s sales scripts and any relevant training material

Read our PPI case studies for detailed examples of how we look into and resolve complaints

How to complain

If you think you’ve been mis-sold PPI, the first thing you need to do is to contact the business you think is responsible. You need to do this by the FCA deadline of 29 August 2019. If you complain to the business after this, there’s no guarantee they’ll look at it. You can find out more about the PPI deadline on the FCA's website.

It’s easy and free to complain, and you don’t need to use a claims management company.

You'll need to give the business as much information as you can about your complaint. It might take a bit of time to remember all the facts and find the paperwork. To make things easier, you can complete our PPI questionnaire to organise the key information about your complaint. You can send this off to the business with your complaint.

They’ll have the chance to put things right for you, and they have to give you an answer within eight weeks.

If you don’t have the business’s contact details, you can find them on the FCA’s website.

If you need help or have any questions, you can get in touch with us and we can explain anything you’re unsure about.

When you refer your complaint to us

You can ask us to look into your complaint if:

• you haven’t heard from the business after eight weeks
• the business has made an offer but you think it’s unfair
• your PPI complaint is rejected and you don't agree with the reasons given

You’ll need to contact us within six months of the business’s response.

We’ll investigate the case, and if we think the business has acted unfairly, we’ll explain how we think they should put things right.

Find out more about how to make a complaint

Putting things right

Once we’ve looked at all the facts of your case, we’ll decide whether or not you were mis-sold PPI.

If we decide the business treated you fairly and didn’t mis-sell your PPI policy, we’ll explain why. But if we decide the business did do something wrong, we’ll tell them to put things right.

We’d usually expect you to be put in the position you’d be in if you hadn’t taken out the policy. But any compensation should take into account your individual circumstances. For example, if you made a successful claim on your PPI, any payout you received is likely to be taken off the compensation. Or if you fell behind with repayments on the credit that the PPI was added to, the compensation is likely to be used to reduce the amount you owe.

The amount of compensation you receive will depend on:

• the type of PPI you were sold
• how you paid for the policy
• how much you paid for PPI
• any interest you paid on top
• how long you had the PPI for

Read more about how we decide and award compensation.

Detailed information for businesses

If you're a business looking for information to help you resolve complaints, detailed information about PPI complaints can be found in the business section of our website.