Payment protection insurance, or PPI, is a kind of insurance that usually is sold along with mortgage loans and credit cards, to protect the borrowers by covering for the repayment should he or she not be able to make it. PPI can either be bought automatically when you make a loan or you get a credit card, but it can also be purchased separately.
What is mis-sold PPI? Some creditors actually make more money with PPI than from the loan itself, which gives them the incentive of packaging it with loans no matter what the context of the money lending is, and that is the reason why a lot of people end up with mis-sold PPI. The PPI policies can actually add up to 10-50% to the cost of the loan, and because not a lot of people know that they can make their claims, the creditors end up earning a lot of money because of this. People are typically mis-sold PPI are those who are self-employed, on a temporary contract, retired, students or have specific medical conditions who are on benefits, because these are the individuals who are disqualified from reclaiming PPI in the first place.
There are certain situations where you can claim back mis-sold PPI. For example, you can demand for your money back if the entire cost that you paid to avail of the insurance was not explained to you, or if the lending company misrepresented themselves by telling you the loan with the added value of the PPI in their quotes already. This is because it is actually optional in taking out loans, so lenders should not make it appear as though its automatically part of all loans. In addition to that, they should let you know what the cost of the PPI itself is. If the loan company is not amenable to hearing your concerns about being mis-sold PPI, send a letter to the Financial Ombudsman regarding this matter. There are also companies that aid people in reclaiming mis-sold PPI.