Galwegians who have been mis-sold payment protection insurance by banks and financial houses must “move quickly” to assert their right to claim for a refund.
This is the view of Galway Labour senator Lorraine Higgins following the Central Bank’s announcement of its uncovering up to €25 million worth of mis-sold PPI contracts in the banking sector. In the first half of the year PPI mis-selling accounted for 44 per cent of all insurance complaints.
PPI is an insurance policy that is taken out as part of any loan. However, most policies exclude claims from people who are retired, self-employed, homemakers, and part-time workers yet some banks sold PPI to these people.
People have six years to make a claim, but Sen Higgins has pointed out that anyone waiting for the bank to contact them on this, “could well be prejudicing their position”.
“For every month that passes you will reduce your chance for claiming for that month if it falls outside the six year limitation period,” she said. “If banks were dishonest enough to encourage people into purchasing policies they knew did not satisfy the conditions of the insurance then they may be slow to recompense.”
Sen Higgins said the banks “still have a long way to go to clean up their act”, but one way this could be done is “by making it much easier for consumers entitled to PPI refunds to claim their money back”.
