Have you been paying for a policy which includes ‘unemployment’? If you don’t need unemployment cover, perhaps because you don’t work or are self-employed, and mentioned this when you took out the policy, or were never asked about your employment status at all, a reclaim may be possible.
Is the policy suitable?
The unemployment element of PPI is only suitable for people who were ‘working’ at the time they took out the policy, therefore you should have been asked about this at the time of application.
Example question: Are you in permanent employment, self-employment or contract employment for more than 16 hours a week?
Of course, if your policy only covers accident and sickness, with no unemployment element, this section doesn’t apply to you.
What is classed as ‘working’?
Providers have different definitions, so it’s important to examine your policy in detail.
If you’re self-employed, check whether your specific set-up is covered. As the ‘unemployment’ element is a substantial part of the insurance cost, many who are self-employed have been paying for a semi-useless policy and this could’ve meant a huge waste of money.
Those who were unemployed at the start of the policy (including students and stay at home parents), were almost definitely missold the insurance as, obviously, you wouldn’t be covered for losing your job. The same applies if you knew you were going to become redundant or retire when you purchased the policy.
If it isn’t suitable, were you missold?
Assuming the policy isn’t suitable, we must establish whether the salesperson bothered to check. Remember, it’s the situation you were in at the time you got the cover that counts, so if you were an employee then, but are now self-employed, that’s not their fault - unless you’ve subsequently asked if the cover was still suitable and been misinformed.
It’s likely you were missold if either:
A. You made the salesperson aware of your situation and they suggested you get it anyway.
B. You weren’t asked about your employment status at all.
Age is an issue too
Most polices have an upper age limit of 65 or 70, after which you’re not covered for anything. If you were older than this when you took out your policy, you were definitely missold. If you have passed the age limit since taking out the policy, your cover and therefore payments should have stopped, but if they haven’t for any reason you’ll at least be entitled to a refund of payments made since passing the age limit.
This situation is rare, as providers’ records should flag up someone’s age being too high from their date of birth, but do check.
What to do if you were missold?
Read the other categories to check there aren’t more reasons to complain and then write a letter to your lender. Full details and template letters in the How to reclaim section.
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/reclaim/
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