Halifax Unsecured Loan - "Insurance Loan" - Have I got a chance to reclaim anything?

pigsmightfly

Hi everyone,

I took out a Halifax unsecured personal loan October 2004 for £5,000. The APR was 12.7%.

As I have currently started maternity and have been working very hard at paying my debts off I have been having another go through all my finances with a fine tooth comb and I have just noticed something called "Insurance Loan" mentioned in my loan agreement which I have never noticed before.

Being more knowledgeable about finances that I was then, this has obviously jumped out at me now. It states on my loan agreement the below:

Amount of Credit (Cash Loan) £5,000
Total Charge for credit for Cash Loan £2,577.64
Total amount you pay for cash loan £7,577.64
Insurance Loan (Cash price of insurance) £1,498.44
Total charge fir credit for insurance loan £772.08
Total amount you pay for insurance loan £2,270.52
84 monthly payments of £117.24
APR 12.7%
Loan £6,498.44
Total charge for credit of loan £3,349.72
Total amount you pay £9,848.16
Monthly interest rate 0.987%
Arrangement Fees £64.98

I was totally shocked when I realized this as I would never have agreed to take insurance at this price and as you can see from the above, a £5,000 loan is costing me almost double with a repayment amount of £9,848.16 in total!! :eek:

I never take out extra insruaqnce on anything and at the time of getting this loan, even though I was younger and less informed than I am now, I still would not have agreed to this as the loan itself was to clear other debts so getting a loan where I would pay double would have been stupid.

I applied for the original loan online and was accepted and everything dealt with via post. At the time I definitely cannot remember anything being mentioned or brought to my attention about loan insurance and how much it would cost prior to me getting the agreement. Unfortunately however, when looking out my loan agreement with the above information on that I have listed, I have signed this paperwork to accept the agreement so does this mean I'm stuck with it??

In January 2007 I had been struggling to meet my monthly payments and this loan was passed over to Blair Oliver and Scott. I arranged a payment plan with them which we were both happy with and I have been paying this off since at the agreed rate, then since May 2009 I increased my monthly payments to continue to bash the total down and get it paid off.

The current balance stands at £1,315.00 however if I hadn't been paying towards insurance I didn't know I had, this would be cleared by now wouldn't it??

Does anyone think I have a chance of getting any money back here/is it worth logging a complaint or will they just argue that I signed for it?

Thank you in advance for your help.

di3004

pigsmightfly wrote: »

Hi everyone,

I took out a Halifax unsecured personal loan October 2004 for £5,000. The APR was 12.7%.

As I have currently started maternity and have been working very hard at paying my debts off I have been having another go through all my finances with a fine tooth comb and I have just noticed something called "Insurance Loan" mentioned in my loan agreement which I have never noticed before.

Being more knowledgeable about finances that I was then, this has obviously jumped out at me now. It states on my loan agreement the below:

Amount of Credit (Cash Loan) £5,000
Total Charge for credit for Cash Loan £2,577.64
Total amount you pay for cash loan £7,577.64
Insurance Loan (Cash price of insurance) £1,498.44
Total charge fir credit for insurance loan £772.08
Total amount you pay for insurance loan £2,270.52
84 monthly payments of £117.24
APR 12.7%
Loan £6,498.44
Total charge for credit of loan £3,349.72
Total amount you pay £9,848.16
Monthly interest rate 0.987%
Arrangement Fees £64.98

I was totally shocked when I realized this as I would never have agreed to take insurance at this price and as you can see from the above, a £5,000 loan is costing me almost double with a repayment amount of £9,848.16 in total!! :eek:

I never take out extra insruaqnce on anything and at the time of getting this loan, even though I was younger and less informed than I am now, I still would not have agreed to this as the loan itself was to clear other debts so getting a loan where I would pay double would have been stupid.

I applied for the original loan online and was accepted and everything dealt with via post. At the time I definitely cannot remember anything being mentioned or brought to my attention about loan insurance and how much it would cost prior to me getting the agreement. Unfortunately however, when looking out my loan agreement with the above information on that I have listed, I have signed this paperwork to accept the agreement so does this mean I'm stuck with it??

In January 2007 I had been struggling to meet my monthly payments and this loan was passed over to Blair Oliver and Scott. I arranged a payment plan with them which we were both happy with and I have been paying this off since at the agreed rate, then since May 2009 I increased my monthly payments to continue to bash the total down and get it paid off.

The current balance stands at £1,315.00 however if I hadn't been paying towards insurance I didn't know I had, this would be cleared by now wouldn't it??

Does anyone think I have a chance of getting any money back here/is it worth logging a complaint or will they just argue that I signed for it?

Thank you in advance for your help.

Hiya

In my opinion, I say go for it, its a lot of money and if you did not realise you were paying for this, then its a possible mis sell.

To do this you pursue the ones who set up and sold you the account, head office or complaints dept if they have one, you do this by completing the reclaiming questionnaire as on link below, stage one of reclaiming.
This replaced the template letter on this site.
Keep copies of everything in case you need to refer to this again at some point.
They have 8 weeks, but may ask for more time, but should keep you informed of the progress of your complaint.
Good luck and keep at them.
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/reclaim/ppi-loan-insurance#reclaim

pigsmightfly

Right, have completed my questionnaire and will get it posted then start counting the weeks until I get my reply.

Fingers crossed

pigsmightfly

Have received a reply from my bank today saying they are investigating my claim and will get back to me.

If they come back rejecting my claim, do I got straight to the ombudsman or do I write to my bank again threatening this?

Thanks

robbedofmymoney

pigsmightfly wrote: »

Have received a reply from my bank today saying they are investigating my claim and will get back to me.

If they come back rejecting my claim, do I got straight to the ombudsman or do I write to my bank again threatening this?

Thanks

i'd wait and see what the replyt actually says first as if it is not their final response you have an opportunity to respond to them before going to the FOS

di3004

Hi there

As Robbed says, see what they come back with first, they do normally have up to 8 weeks.

Its possible they may ask for more time.
Or if they made a decision that your not happy with and not mentioned anything about the FOS, I believe you can ask them to reconsider with further information.

Then normally in a final decision, they enclose details with a leaflet on how to complain to the FOS, and if they reject your able to take your complaint to these, good luck.

pigsmightfly

Just updating my progress on this one, got a letter back from Halifax saying the basic "we have received your complaint, have up to 8 weeks, high volume of complaints etc."

Am due to chase them soon and haven't heard anything else from them since this letter so just wondered does anyone have a template letter I can send to them next to chase it up at all?

Thanks

pigsmightfly

Hi, Just wondered if anyone could help with this one? Thanks

amersall

Hi there, due to the backlog caused by the jr, you are looking at 16 weeks for a result, they are doing claims from the order they recieved them, just sit tight and wait, they may be quicker than this and chasing it up will just get you "we are sorry we are inundated with claims etc".
They have been allowed extra time to deal with these complaints so let it take its course.

pigsmightfly

amersall wrote: »

Hi there, due to the backlog caused by the jr, you are looking at 16 weeks for a result, they are doing claims from the order they recieved them, just sit tight and wait, they may be quicker than this and chasing it up will just get you "we are sorry we are inundated with claims etc".
They have been allowed extra time to deal with these complaints so let it take its course.

Hi,
Thanks for that - I have since had another letter from them saying that they have the 16 weeks etc so will just sit tight and with fingers crossed

pigsmightfly

Am getting really anxious to hear back from here to see if I am entitled to anything, knowing my luck I won't but worth a try.

Has anyone else had any luck with Halifax loan ppi?

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