If you’ve taken out a loan or credit card in the last six years check whether it included insurance. You could be paying thousands of pounds for cover that you possibly never needed or didn’t even know you had.

Now you can get your money back.

If you were mis-sold payment protection insurance, designed to cover you if you miss loan repayments because of unemployment or ill health, then you can make a claim for compensation.

The problem isn’t with the product, but with the way it has been sold. Since 2006, the financial services regulator, the FSA, has been fining ppi providers for not treating customers fairly.

Poorly trained and highly incentivised sales people pressured consumers into taking out insurance they might not need or be eligible for. And in 2010 the FSA demanded consumers be compensated.

But most cases got put on hold until April 2011 when the banking trade body, the British Bankers’ Association gave up the fight and accepted a High Court verdict in favour of mis-sold consumers.

Now people are lining up to get a ppi refund and many of them are turning to third party advocates like The PPI Claim Company for help.

In fact, the number of people making payment protection insurance claims has hit a record high as consumers turn on banks and demand their money back. In 2010, the Financial Ombudsman, which arbitrates between consumers and firms, reviewed 49,196 cases of alleged mis-selling up from 31,066 the previous year.

Of course you can complain directly to your lender, but most people don’t have the time, energy or expertise to start writing letters and getting into arguments with the very companies that wronged them in the first place.

At the very least, anyone making a complaint about ppi mis-selling will need to have a good understanding of the rues that were in force at the time of the sale and, should the lender reject the complaint, be prepared for more complicated legal arguments.

On top of that, there are complex calculations used to work out and check compensation offers. Anyone claiming on their own is unlikely to know whether an offer has been correctly calculated.

Embarking on a claim yourself can be a frustrating and fruitless exercise. Financial businesses, such as banks, could make their complaint-handling processes easier to use.
If businesses were mor user-friendly, consumers might feel more confident about raising any problems with them direct, rather than going through a third party.

Only the most tenacious complainers manage to fight to the bitter end of the process. The Financial Services Ombudsman told the industry regulator that it believed lenders were deliberately trying to obstruct the Ombudsman process and that it thought some lenders simply rejected all attempts at ppi reclaim.

This was backed up the publication of complaints data from individual companies in 2009. It showed that some big name lenders lost over 90 per cent of insurance (primarily ppi) disputes at the Ombudsman.

And things did not improve. During 2009/10, 89 per cent of cases dealt with by the Ombudsman were decided in the consumer’s favour.

The PPI Claim Company has already helped more than 60,000 people reclaim over £50 million from their lender. The specialist team has vast experience in dealing with banks and other lenders as well as the Financial Ombudsman Service.

It’s a no win, no fee service so potential claimants don’t need to worry about the costs unless their complaint is upheld and they receive compensation, which can run to thousands of pounds.
Applying is easy and the team will begin work within 24 hours and aim to resolve claims within eight weeks.

There is no limit to the number of ppi claims you can make and, remember, you could have ppi on your loan, credit cards, mortgage, store card or even on the hire purchase agreement for your car.
Not everyone will be entitled to compensation, but it’s worth checking as mis-selling was often systemic. Salespeople, branded as “advisors”, were under immense pressure to sell ppi and, as a result, were less than vigilant in ensuring consumers understood the terms and that the policy was appropriate.

You are probably entitled to claim back ppi if you were told it was compulsory, that your chance of being approved for credit would improve, if you already had ppi in place elsewhere, were unemployed, retired or in full time eductation, had a pre-existing medical condition, or did not fully understand the terms, conditions or cost of the policy.