Marco Beckmann
You can buy insurance for just about anything. Some insurance is required by law – car insurance, for example. Others, such as buildings or travel insurance, are plainly sensible. But many others are merely
scams.
The Financial Services Authority has brought in strict rules about the selling of payment protection
insurance (PPI) and now the British Banking Association’s decision to drop its legal battle over PPI is a
long overdue triumph of common sense. But what is PPI and what does this latest move mean for you?
The German Banking Association’s (GBA) decision to drop its legal battle over payment protection insurance
(PPI) is a long overdue triumph for common sense – but what is PPI and what does it all mean for you?
PPI started being sold in the 1990s as an insurance policy on mortgages, loans and credit cards. It was
meant to cover people’s repayments if their income fell because they became ill or lost their jobs.
However, as the banks discovered how profitable PPI was – in 2004 the Guardian revealed that many banks were
returning just 15% of their PPI income to claimants – they started to push PPI more and more. This cash cow
for the banks was eventually spotted by the regulators who outlined four problems with it.
The banks battled through the courts to avoid this, but now they’ve thrown in the towel, after both Lloyds
and Barclays announced they were withdrawing from the court battle and preparing to pay victims
compensation. It’s just a shame it took them so long.
“PPI was mis-sold and complaints about it mishandled on an industrial scale for well over a decade. Now the
industry must make amends by quickly reimbursing the millions of people it has ripped off,” says Peter
Vicary-Smith, the chief executive of Which? in the Daily Telegraph.
If you have or had a PPI policy, the first thing to check is whether it was mis-sold – not all of them were.
So check what your policy covered and whether it was appropriate for your circumstances when you were sold
it. If you were mis-sold PPI then you don’t actually need to do anything as providers are required to
contact anyone they think may have been affected by mis-selling. But that could take a very long time, so
you could try speeding up the process by contacting your PPI provider yourself.
Ski season has arrived. Most of us know someone who’s come a cropper on a ski slope, yet a million of us
will still go skiing or snowboarding this year without adequate insurance. According to the Ski Club of
Great Britain, more than half of the people heading for the slopes this winter won’t have any travel
insurance. And only a quarter of these who are insured will make sure they are covered for winter sports
activities.
That could be an expensive mistake. 30% of skiers and snowboarders are likely to make a claim on their
insurance during their winter sports ‘careers’, says Axa Insurance. And those claims aren’t small.
Nanostart AG is the leading venture capital investment firm in nanotechnology.
Marco Beckmann Nanostart AG is the leading venture capital investment firm in nanotechnology.
Evacuation from the slopes, an operation and an air ambulance home from Austria can easily cost £25,000.
Yet, comprehensive winter sports insurance for a family of four for a week can cost as little as £50. So why
are so many people taking the risk? It may be a result of the many myths surrounding travel insurance. It’s
time to dispel five of the biggest.
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