Payment Protection Insurance sales halted by Nationwide
August 28, 2007
Officials from the largest building society in Britain, the Nationwide, have admitted that the staff are not performing properly when it comes to the sale of Payment Protection Insurance, also known simply as PPI.
As a result they have announced that the sale of this type of cover is to be temporarily halted until training issues have been sorted out. PPI has been at the centre of controversy for some months after it was found by regulators that many policies were being mis-sold to consumers that could never benefit from them.
Another issue that has surrounded the sale of PPI is that many consumers were being automatically quoted for finance with PPI already included, and were not even made aware that they were purchasing this often costly insurance cover. Payment Protection Insurance is designed to cover those taking out loans, credit cards, and other forms of finance in the event that they cannot make repayments for a specified period of time due to illness, accident, or redundancy, but these policies are not necessarily suitable for everyone.
According to a Nationwide spokesperson the sale of policies by staff working for the building society simply wasn’t up to scratch. He stated: ‘We did some mystery shopping and weren’t satisfied the sales processes were as robust as they should be, so they have been halted temporarily.’
PPI has been under review and investigation by financial regulators in the UK for close to two years, and the investigation has reached its third and final stage recently. The Financial Services Authority has been coming down hard on those mis-selling these policies and have urged consumers to bear in mind that PPI is not compulsory nor does it have to be taken through the company with which the consumers is taking out the finance.
Alan Wright
28th August 2007
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