The FCA believes that there are a significant amount of people in the UK who have still not made a claim for mis-sold PPI .
A TV advert starring Hollywood action star Arnold Schwarzenegger in which an animatronic version of the actor roars at people to claim mis-sold payment protection insurance (PPI) has launched. It marks a two-year countdown for making such claims.
The Financial Conduct Authority watchdog chose the big-name star to front its multimillion-pound campaign to attract maximum attention to its deadline of August 2019 for making claims for mis-sold PPI. The controversial financial instrument was designed to protect consumers, banks and other financial institutions, in the event people became ill, redundant or passed away and could not make repayments on loans, mortgages, credit cards, vehicle financing and other products.
But many people were unaware that PPI was attached to their loans or credit cards, or felt they had to accept it as part of the application process. Refunds and compensation have been pouring out of the financial institutions since early 2011, with claims management software invented to try and help businesses deal with the influx of claims. To date, £27.7 billion has been paid to customers — and there is a lot more still to come.
The new blockbuster TV ad, costing £42 million and paid for by over a dozen banks, building societies, credit card companies and other financial institutions, aims to stop people endlessly putting off a PPI claim and to do it now.
“Come on!” the Arnie model mounted on a moving kind of mini-tank shouts at people, urging them to check now if they may have been mis-sold PPI and to make their claim. Many people make PPI claims using the expertise of a claims management company. The best of these firms typically use claims management software to deal with high caseloads in a quick and efficient manner.
Altogether, 64 million PPI policies were sold and 12 million successful claims have been made, whilst 4 million have been rejected. The banks and other financial providers have set aside an additional £37 billion to cover PPI claims over the next two years. The FCA says people who were not mis-sold PPI may also be able to claim compensation, if the financial body earned a high rate of commission on it.
FCA chief executive Andrew Bailey said the time to act was now, and that people risked losing out on PPI refunds or compensation if they kept on delaying making a claim.
“Our campaign aims to cut through the noise on PPI. We want to encourage people to decide whether to find out if they had PPI and whether to complain or not,” he said. “Our message, and Arnie’s, is ‘do it now’ and I urge people to make a decision before the deadline on 29 August 2019.”
Even though most people use a claims management company — often one that uses claims management software to ensure an added layer of professionalism — the FCA said the financial institutions had agreed to a number of steps to make PPI claims easier for members of the public dealing directly with them.
These include ensuring there is a way to submit a PPI complaint online; making forms and other paperwork easy to understand so they don’t put people off making a complaint; supporting vulnerable customers who may need help with making a PPI complaint; and ensuring there’s a free and helpful process for checking PPI claims.
The FCA hopes that two years from now, the entire PPI mis-selling scandal that has been rumbling on will finally be brought to an end. This, it believes, will then go a long way towards restoring credibility to Britain’s battered financial sector and the many banks and other financial companies that have been embroiled in the sorry saga that is the PPI affair.
