Yorkshire Bank Loan Insurance
For many years Loan insurance was an extremely popular financial product, but it has become increasingly controversial in recent years after several high profile investigations revealed serious issues regarding the way the cover had been sold. Investigations by the Citizens Advice Bureau, the Financial Services Authority (FSA) and the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) revealed significant and widespread failings affecting sales throughout the lending world from small brokers to major banks.
Payment protection cover, such as Yorkshire Bank loan insurance, is not an intrinsically bad product, but it is not suitable for everyone. Unfortunately, many lenders recommended it as though it were and this led to some customers being sold policies they did not want, need or even, in the worst cases, that they were ineligible to use.
Following the FSA investigations, some of the worst mis-selling offenders were handed significant fines. The investigations attracted a lot of media attention and public awareness of the issue of mis-selling increased enormously. Since the FSA’s initial investigation in 2006 more than 1.5 million complaints regarding the sale of payment protection insurance have been received and millions of pounds have been paid out in compensation.
In the same year as the OFT investigated the mis-sale of payment protection cover it also investigated the charges applied by lenders for late payments and over the limit fees. It was found that some lenders were charging fees of up to £35 and that some customers had these charges applied numerous times over many months. Critics of these charges claimed they were unfair and penalised people in the most financially tenuous position. The OFT concluded that £12 was the maximum acceptable charge that should be applied for late payments and over the limit fees. This figure took into account the cost of staffing, postage and some contribution toward IT systems. As a result of the OFT’s investigation, most lenders have now lowered their charges to £12 and if you paid higher fees in the past you now have the right to register a complaint.
If you believe you were mis-sold a Yorkshire Loan Insurance policy or you require assistance claiming back bank charges call our team on 0207 471 2000.
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