Loan insurance has always supposedly been designed to offer individual borrowers the peace of mind they need to feel safe n the knowledge that their debt is protected against ill health and unemployment. However, investigations into the payment protection insurance industry by the finance industry regulator Financial Services Authority have proved this not to be the case in the last year or so.
Instead of protecting the consumer, loan insurance was a cash cow for high street banks and lenders, providing them with a decent profit as a result of the strict terms and conditions that contain several exclusions. As a result of those very exclusions, many individuals were unable to claim on their loan insurance as and when they needed to. This may have resulted in their debts becoming even more severe and most certainly brought on financial difficulty through no fault of their own. As a result, in some cases, loan insurance represented very bad value indeed.
Some of the exclusions contained within the loan insurance small print should have been highlighted by sales representatives that sold the loan insurance to individuals in, but profits were apparently more...