Payment Protection Insurance

Until a few years ago, not many people would have heard of Payment Protection Insurance, commonly referred to as PPI. Now it is almost inescapable, with TV adverts and text messages bombarding people with queries as to whether they have ever had PPI on bank products.

But what exactly is Payment Protection Insurance, and what type of protection does this type of insurance offer people who take it out?

Well, this problem enables consumers to be sure that a loan gets repaid even in the even of the person who borrows the money dying or having some other circumstance that would put repayment in jeopardy: more commonly something like a long term illness or perhaps losing their job meaning that the revenue they had which was paying for the loan has gone.

It is a product that is standardly sold by anyone who offers credit, and is an add-on payment to the loan or overdraft product, as relevant.

So it's just another type of insurance product that some people choose to take out for peace of mind, and others don't. Like is standardly the case with insurance, you hope you never actually have to claim on it. So why the controversy with PPI in particular?

The main reason seems to be allegations that Payment Protection Insurance was mis-sold by some quarters and thus that many people were unaware that they even had it, despite the fact that they were paying for it. The reason for this is said to be that there were commissions available for those who sold PPI as an addition to a loan and therefore they were highly incentivised to add it on. Several companies in the UK were fined by the FSA for mis-selling PPI. Many companies have sprung up that help people reclaim PPI that they believe was mis-sold to them.

Of course it needs to be said that Payment Protection Insurance can be a useful form of insurance, and if taken out in full understanding of what it is and the protection that it does and doesn't afford, it can indeed be a very sensible form of insurance to get.

Related Articles...

Saving on Home Insurance Home insurance splits into the bricks and mortar insurance - buildings insurance - and the stuff that you put inside your house such as your valuables - the contents, hence that bit is called the... Crop Insurance There are two main types of crop yield insurance available, which come under the category of types of agricultural insurance product. It is self-explanatory what crop insurance guards against -... Health Insurance One of the most common insurance products is health insurance, a broad umbrella category that covers any sort of insurance product that helps an individual mitigate against the expenses that are... Flood Insurance Flood insurance is a specific product under the umbrella of insurance and it covers - as the name suggests - losses that occur due to flooding. In many cases, this form of protection (flood... Saving Money on Car Insurance Like with most types of insurance, the car insurance sector is extremely competitive. There are a lot of providers of this product, but also a lot of different factors that are taken into account to... Property Insurance Property insurance is a product that applies specifically to property, and has various different types of specific that are subsets of the general umbrella term 'property insurance'. Specific... Life Insurance One of the most well-known types of insurance product is life insurance. And this does very much what it says on the tin - it insures against the life of a person. Thus, if the policy holder (the... Motorbike Insurance Motorbike insurance might sound like a bit of a niche category of insurance, but there are actually a huge number of people who ride these sorts of vehicles, and so even within this there are... Contents Insurance Contents insurance is a type of insurance product that covers the items that you have - the contents - of your home. There are a range of different providers of contents insurance out there on... What Is Insurance? What exactly is insurance? It sounds like a very basic concept, but it is important to know what insurance is, in order to work out why insurance is so essential to modern-day activities, and why...