Reclaim your PPI premiums for free

If you have taken out a credit or store card, loan, catalogue credit, car finance or an overdraft, you like millions of others, could have been mis-sold payment protection insurance along with it. 

You don’t need to hand over your cash to a PPI claims company – our free guide has already enabled countless readers to win back money on policies they were mis-sold.

Here we explain how you can find out if you are owed any money, and how to go about claiming it back if you are. 

The FCA has now set a claims deadline for 29 August 2019 so make sure get your skates on and check now, if you think you may have a claim.

We’ve even produced template letters to help you claim – download the template letters here, or see further guidance on how to use them below. 

BEWARE! There are firms offering to pursue your claim for you on a ‘no win, no fee’ basis – they run ads on TV and use spam texts and cold calls to get your attention. 

These firms offer nothing that individuals can’t do themselves and take hefty fees into the bargain – sometimes even if you don’t have a claim at all.

Most companies that mis-sold PPI now have processes in place to pay claimants quickly, and official channels for deciding on disputed cases are set up so that ordinary people can use them without resorting to claims firms.

You may decide to use a claims firm, but you are likely to hand them hundreds or thousands for something you can do yourself. This is Money has campaigned against PPI mis-selling for more than a decade and strongly advises that you reclaim lost money yourself. 

Have I got PPI?

PPI is attached to loans, credit cards and other credit agreements, such as car finance. You may have more than one PPI policy. Mis-selling of the insurance was so widespread that the worst firms added it without borrowers knowing.

PPI on a credit card should be simple to spot – a payment to cover the premium will show up on monthly statements.

It can be harder to identify on loans and other credit agreements. The cost of it may even have been rolled into the loan amount, meaning there is no separate payment to cover the PPI. 

If you have your original agreement or any old statements you can also look out for payments labelled ASU, loan care, payment cover, protection plan, loan protection.    

If in doubt, it’s best to contact your lender to find out if you have it. Some also have online tools to check for you if you have ever had PPI on the account.  

If you don’t have the documents or you can’t remember which lenders and what products you have had in the past, all is is not lost.

You can use your credit file to see all of your borrowing over the past six years, even if you have closed the account. 

Find out more about how to check your credit file here. 

Once you are sure which lenders you have had accounts with you can then contact them and ask them for a copy of the agreement and the terms and conditions. 

If you don’t have the original agreement for an open account it may cost you £1 to request it.

If it’s closed, you may have to pay up to £10 for a full breakdown of your account.

You can usually send a request by post, it may speed things up by including a cheque for the amount.

I have it – but can I claim?

You can claim if the sale of your PPI was unfair. The clearest cases of mis-selling are those where customers were sold the insurance when they had no chance of claiming on it.

Here’s a list of circumstances where buyers may have been mis-sold.

• If you were not employed at the time you took the insurance – whether you were unemployed, self-employed or retired – you should not have been sold the insurance.
• If, when you took the insurance, you had a medical problem that could have kept you from working, you should have been warned that the insurance was unlikely to be suitable for you. If it wasn’t explained, you can claim.
• If you were sold a ‘single premium’ policy – where the whole cost of the loan is paid for up front with money that is also borrowed at the same interest rate as the loan – you should at least be able to get a refund by cancelling the PPI. If you cancelled or repaid the loan early, but were unable to cancel the PPI, then you can claim for a refund.
• If the refund you were offered was only a fraction of the cost you paid, you can claim to get a fair refund. If you were able to cancel the insurance, but the loan was redrawn at less favourable rates, you can also claim money back.
• If the entire cost of the PPI was not explained to you, or if the company only quoted the cost of the loan with the PPI attached, then you can claim.
• If you were told the insurance was compulsory it is likely you can claim. 
• If other important features of the loan were not explained – for example, the terms for cancelling the cover or significant exclusions such as stress and back problems – then you can claim.
• Most policies have an upper age limit – usually 65 or 70. If you were older than the age limit for your policy when you took the insurance, you can claim.
• If you already had alternative cover that could insure your repayments – such as income protection or an employer illness or redundancy package – but were not asked about this, you could claim.
• If you bought PPI to cover a long-term loan there is a chance that the insurance will run out before the loan is repaid. Most PPI policies will only run for five years, so if your loan term is longer than this the seller should have explained this limitation. If they didn’t, you can claim.
• If you have noticed you are paying for PPI that you didn’t know you had there is a chance that it was added without your knowledge, or through an ‘opt out’ box that you missed. It will be up to the seller to prove you agreed to the insurance, so if you can’t remember being asked, you can claim.

Who do I complain to?

To make your claim you first need to complain to the firm that sold you the insurance. It may be that this firm was acting as the representative of another company. In which case you should write to them.

Some banks also have dedicated PPI claims pages on their websites where you can fill out an online form to claim. 

You should include all the reasons why you believe you have been mis-sold the insurance.

Use our template letter which lets you select any number of the reasons listed above. Simply tailor the letter to fit you circumstances, deleting the segments that do not apply to you.

Many of the major institutions, such as the banks, are now repaying customers with the minimum of fuss, but do not be put off if the firms replies to say that they disagree and that they are assured the sale was within the rules.

We have known cases of firms swearing that sales conversations were recorded that prove a sale was valid, only to back down when challenged to produce the evidence.

What if I am rejected or disagree with the amount I’ve been offered?

If you are not offered a refund in the final response to your letter from the company, or are offered an amount that you do not believe is fair, you can take your complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS).

If the company simply ignores your complaint, or refuses to address it with a final response, you can go the FOS after eight weeks.

The FOS has laid out a procedure for claimants to follow, which you can find here. The huge volume of claims has slowed the process down and the FOS may take some time to respond with a decision on your case. Some cases can take up to two years.

The initial decision will be made by an FOS adjudicator. Both parties have the right to appeal this decision. If you want to appeal you can ask for you case to go before an FOS ombudsman. This decision is then final and legally binding on both sides.

You cannot appeal an Ombudsman’s decision but you can ask for their handling of your case to be reviewed by the FOS’s service review team and ultimately to an independent assessor, though they will only look at the service you received, not the PPI complaint itself.

How much will I get?

If the firm, or the Financial Ombudsman Service, agree that you were mis-sold the insurance on a regular premium policy (such as a mortgage or credit card) you should get back all the premiums you have paid, with interest added.

If you took out a single policy with a personal loan or finance agreement it works slightly differently.

If you are still making repayments on the loan lenders will work out what you would have paid without the cost of PPI on the loan amount. It will then recalculate what your repayments would have been without this, and deduct the amount you have overpaid from your existing balance. 

If you have already cleared the debt, you will receive the PPI payments you made plus the difference between what you paid in total and what you  

Remember, it may be that you weren’t mis-sold the policy in the first instance, but were treated unfairly when you went to cancel the cover.

FCA rules say that when a customer cancels a single premium policy, the firm should give a ‘fair’ refund. 

This may not necessarily be a pro-rata refund i.e. you won’t get half the cost back if you cancel halfway through. However, firms should only charge for ‘reasonably incurred costs’. If you don’t feel the refund is fair, challenge it.

What if the firm who sold me the PPI has gone bust?

If the company who sold you the PPI has since gone into default, then it will be the Financial Services Compensation Service (FSCS) that deals with your claim.

The FSCS can provide compensation of up to 90 per cent of your claim, with no upper limit. However, it can only provide compensation for PPI schemes that were taken out on or after January 14, 2005.

Information on how to make a claim to the FSCS can be found here.