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LLoyds stops selling PPI due to Claims

The Telegraph

PPI: Barclays to appeal against point-of-sale ban
Barclays is to appeal against a ban on lenders selling payment protection insurance at the same time that the underlying loan is sold.

Barclays is contesting the findings of a 23-month investigation by the Competition Commission on PPI. The commission said in January that lenders shouldn’t sell PPI at the same time as a loan. It also banned single-premium PPI, when the repayments on the credit and the insurance premiums are shown as one sum.
“The main area of concern is the point-of-sale ban which, it is felt, is not justified by the evidence that has been provided,” Barclays said in a statement. “Additionally, the scope of the market definition set by the Competition Commission is being challenged.”

Barclays isn’t challenging the whole of the commission’s report. It’s asking the tribunal to make the commission reconsider the ban and pay its costs.
PPI, which generates as much as £5.5 billion of annual revenue for British banks, is sold to cover payments on loans and mortgages in case of sickness or unemployment. The product has come under scrutiny from regulators including the Financial Services Authority, which decided in February to ban single-premium PPI.
The Competition Commission said: “We’ll defend our case vigorously and, given that we’ve identified what we think are long-standing problems with the PPI market, we’ll want to minimise any delay this causes to implementation of the remedies.”
Barclays has already stopped selling single-premium PPI after 20 FSA enforcement cases, one of which resulted in a £7 million fine on Banco Santander's Alliance & Leicester for aggressive sales.

LLoyds stops selling PPI due to Claims

The Telegraph
PPI: Banks to be banned from selling alongside loans, Competition Commission rules
The Competition Commission is to ban the sale of payment protection insurance (PPI) alongside credit agreements.
Banks and other loans providers will be banned from trying to sell the controversial insurance policies to borrowers within seven days of the loan being taken out.
The commission is introducing a package of measures to boost competition in the market, including personal PPI quotes for consumers, annual statements on the cover, and better information to make it easier for people to shop around and switch provider.
In its final report, it said the vast majority of the UK's more than 12m PPI policies were sold at the same time as people took out credit cards, loans or other credit agreements, with many consumers unaware that they could buy PPI from other providers.
It said this point-of-sale advantage made it difficult for other providers to reach credit customers, leading to consumers being charged high prices.
In a previous report it estimated that the lack of competition in the market was leading to consumers being overcharged for PPI, which covers debt repayments if the holder is unable to work due to an accident or illness or if they lose their job, by £1.4 billion a year.
Peter Davis, inquiry chairman and Commission deputy chairman, said: "These are significant measures carefully designed to address the serious competition problems that currently exist in this market.

LLoyds stops selling PPI due to Claims

The Telegraph
PPI: Swinton fined £770,000 and to refund 350,000
Swinton, the insurance broker, has been handed a £770,000 fine by the Financial Services Authority (FSA) for mis-selling controversial payment protection insurance (PPI) policies.

Under an agreement with the FSA, Swinton will contact over 350,000 customers who paid for PPI and offer them a refund.
Swinton's PPI sales process was "flawed", the FSA found, because of an "assumptive" selling technique in which PPI was automatically included in insurance quotes without first establishing that the customer had any real demand or need for the PPI cover. "This resulted in unacceptable levels of non-compliant sales," the regulator said.
PPI policies have been criticised for including hidden exclusions that make it difficult to claim successfully. While Swinton sold over 500,000 policies, only 266 claims were paid out, the FSA said. "Swinton did not put in place any or any adequate system for establishing that the PPI was suitable for the customer before the recommendation was made," it added.
"Swinton's sales process provided customers with inadequate information about the significant features of the PPI at the point of sale and the firm's sales process included statements about the extent of the PPI cover which did not adequately explain the features and benefits whilst at the same time explaining the complex limitations and exclusions."

LLoyds stops selling PPI due to Claims

The Telegraph
Other banks are expected to follow the lead of Lloyds Banking Group and stop selling controversial payment protection insurance, experts say.

Taxpayer-backed Lloyds Banking Group confirmed last night that it had stopped selling the cover alongside loans, credit cards and mortgages from last Friday.
The group attributed its decision to the uncertainty surrounding the regulation of PPI, after the Competition Commission said earlier this year that it planned to go ahead with a ban on the sale of the cover alongside credit agreements.
But Lloyds said it thought the changes in regulation would make it "uneconomic" for it to continue to offer the product in its current form. It will instead issue customers interested in PPI with a generic leaflet produced by the British Bankers' Association.

A number of other banks are also reviewing their decision to sell the insurance.

HSBC stopped selling PPI as a stand-alone product in 2007, and instead offers it as part of its Life Choices cover, which enables consumers to take out a range of insurance covers, such as life insurance, critical illness cover and PPI, in a single product.

Royal Bank of Scotland and NatWest only offer the cover with mortgages and loans of between £25,000 and £35,000, but this is under review, while Nationwide also only offers it with mortgages.

Barclays is also in the process of phasing out the sale of the cover alongside a number of its credit products, while Santander stopped selling PPI alongside unsecured credit in 2009 and is continuing to review the sale of it alongside mortgages.

New online help for PPI customers

People who want to buy payment protection insurance (PPI) can now get advice from the website of the Financial Services Authority (FSA).

The watchdog has launched a set of tables to help consumers compare the policies on offer and their cost.

PPI insures people in case they cannot repay loans due to ill health or job loss, and has proved controversial.

This month the Competition Commission said insurers were overcharging their PPI customers by £1.4bn a year.

A spokesman for the FSA said that the tables were "a starting point to give customers basic information about what the polices offer and what they cost".

"PPI is almost always optional and consumers need to consider their own financial circumstances when deciding to purchase it and make sure they are clear about what will be covered," he added.

Complaints

The selling of PPI has been very controversial for several years, with critics such as Citizens Advice describing the industry as a "protection racket".

Insurers have been accused of selling polices that are too expensive and which may even fail to provide the cover they claim to offer.

The FSA has levied numerous fines on financial companies for mis-selling PPI policies.

And the Competition Commission even suggested that to protect customers it might impose temporary price limits and ban firms from selling PPI policies to customers at the point at which they take out a loan.

PPI still mis-sold, says Which?
BBC
Many people are still being misled into buying payment protection insurance (PPI) to cover their credit card payments, Which? claims.
A survey for the consumers' association suggests that nearly 10 million people have a PPI policy with their cards.
But 13% - 1.3 million - bought it under the mistaken belief it was compulsory or would improve their chances of having their card application approved.
Which? said people were wasting their money buying any form of PPI policy.
"Credit card PPI is a modern day snake oil - it's a useless product, expensive and poorly designed," said Doug Taylor of Which?
"In this time of economic uncertainty, people are effectively throwing away £970 million each year, when they should be encouraged to seek independent financial advice about protecting their finances as a whole," he added.
This was rejected by the British Bankers Association (BBA), who said the insurance was a valuable "plan B".
"Taking out PPI is not a condition for agreeing to provide the borrowing facility and people are free to shop around if they want to," a BBA spokesperson said.
"Last year, a mystery shopping exercise carried out by the FSA showed improvements in staff making it clear to customers that cover is optional and new rules which came into force in July tighten the PPI regime even further," the spokesperson added.
PPI is designed to ensure that people can still repay their loans, such as credit card payments or mortgages, if they fall ill or become unemployed.
Criticism
Consumer bodies such as Which? and Citizens Advice have long campaigned against the selling of PPI, describing it as little more than a protection racket run by the banks to boost their profits.

1,000 Britons a week complain about being mis-sold payment protection
By Nicky Burridge (The Independent)
Thursday, 8 July 2010

than 1,000 people a week are pursuing mis-selling claims about payment-protection insurance (PPI) after having their complaints rejected by the banks, the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) revealed yesterday. The ombudsman said it was receiving some 200 complaints every working day relating to the insurance cover from people unhappy with the way providers had dealt with their complaint.
The FOS had expected to receive around 46,000 complaints about PPI this year, but figures now suggest the total will be far higher than this.
The ombudsman has repeatedly criticised the banks and other PPI providers for the way they handle complaints, claiming many are failing to investigate them properly. The service is upholding more than 80 per cent of the complaints it receives about PPI, which is the single most complained-about product.
The FOS has typically called on offending firms to pay four-figure compensation sums to consumers, although in some cases the figure has been as high as £25,000.
Yet it is thought that tens of thousands of customers may be missing out on compensation because they fail to pursue their claims through the FOS. Figures from the City watchdog, the Financial Services Authority (FSA), show that firms received about 260,000 complaints from consumers relating to PPI during 2009, but only 41,000 were subsequently referred to the ombudsman.

Problems getting NHS Continuing care Funding
The person you're looking after may have a continuing healthcare assessment to consider whether their care needs are so great that they should be met free of charge by the NHS. The assessment will look at the type and level of their healthcare needs. Their needs will be looked at in light of a 'national framework': this is government guidance for those carrying out the assessment.

NHS continuing healthcare should be available for people whose need for care is mainly health-related. Services provided by the NHS as continuing healthcare are free of charge. This is different to care services provided by social services, where the person receiving the care services may have to pay a charge.
You and the person you're looking after may need to know how to complain or take further action in the following situations:
• If NHS continuing healthcare is agreed but you are not satisfied with the type or location of NHS care offered.
• If you're not satisfied with the way the continuing healthcare assessment was carried out.
• If the outcome of the assessment was to refuse NHS continuing healthcare.
• If you think NHS continuing healthcare should have been awarded for a past period.
Steps to take

The person being assessed should have a comprehensive assessment by any of a range of the healthcare professionals involved in their care (called a multidisciplinary team). There should be clearly identified professionals who will co-ordinate the process.
The team will consider each of the healthcare needs of the person you're looking after. These are:

• behaviour
• cognition (understanding)
• communication
• psychological/emotional needs
• mobility
• nutrition (food and drink)
• continence
• skin (including wounds and ulcers)
• breathing
• symptom control through drug therapies and medication, and
• altered states of consciousness

Those carrying out the assessment should look at what help is needed, how complex these needs are, how intense and unpredictable these needs can be, as well as any risks that would exist if adequate care was not provided. For each of these issues a decision is then made about the level of need. The levels are 'priority', 'severe', 'high', 'moderate' or 'low'.
Your own views and those of the person you're looking after should also be taken into account when the assessment is carried out.