Advice Needed - Scottish Widows Income Protection Plan

ukjamesh

Hi all,

A long time ago I signed up for a Scottish Widows Income Protection Plan, it must of been at least 10+ years ago. I've been paying the monthly instalments which have been slowly creeping up annually since then, most recently they had reached around £15 a month. Every time I noticed the payment I kept meaning to cancel it but never did! I've finally got round to cancelling it a few days ago.

My question is around the way that it was sold to me and if I could be due to some sort of compensation. I can't remember the exact situation but I never went looking for IPP. It was offered to me when I was getting a loan with Lloyds, I can't remember the exact loan amount but at a guess I would of said it was for a £3-4000. Initially I felt I would have to get the IPP or they wouldn't give me the loan. I can remember the discussions with the Scottish Widow rep, who was located in the bank, took longer than the loan application. I told the SW rep I will think about it and left the bank with the loan application approved.

I then got a phone call from the SW Rep every few days asking if I was coming into the bank to sign the paperwork? I can even remember saying I don't want the cover and if I can't pay it my family would help me out. There response to that was along the lines of, "... are you sure they'd be happy with that?, what if something happened to them?" Anyway I was young and stupid(same now but old ) so I ended up giving in...

So whats the opinion of the experts out there?
Does the same rules apply to mis-sold IPP as they do to PPI?
Should I pursue this, or just forget about it as I shouldn't of given in?

If I was to pursue this, how would I?

Thanks to all who read this...

And have a Merry Christmas :beer: :j

James

antrobus

ukjamesh wrote: »

...
Does the same rules apply to mis-sold IPP as they do to PPI?
Should I pursue this, or just forget about it as I shouldn't of given in?

Looks like Scottish Widows Protect is a wrapper for life insurance/critical illness.

http://www.scottishwidows.co.uk/life_insurance/scottish_widows_protect/personal_protection/index.html

ukjamesh wrote: »

...
If I was to pursue this, how would I?

You can make a miss-sale complaint about any financial product. You just contact the seller. It's just harder to complain about (say) life insurance, because no one is immortal.

dunstonh

I can remember the discussions with the Scottish Widow rep, who was located in the bank, took longer than the loan application. I told the SW rep I will think about it and left the bank with the loan application approved.

The bank's sales process included a factfind, shortfall analysis and a suitability report issued.

PHI (the type of income protection you have) is considered one of the most important insurances someone can have.

So whats the opinion of the experts out there?

Nothing you have said indicates any missale.

Does the same rules apply to mis-sold IPP as they do to PPI?

There are no specific PPI rules. You can complain about anything you like. Including the colour of the carpet in the bank.

In the case of this sale, the audit trail should be much better than PPI sales. Also, the product doesn't have any particular failings (the branch SW version is not as good as available on the open market but that's what you get from buying from a bank - its not a missale reason though)

ukjamesh

Thanks for the advice

robbedofmymoney

income protection is a great policy to have, a good one can negate the need for any ppi policy on cards and loans etc.


mine is with Scottish widows too and its something I will never stop having, mines a little more than £15 a month but well worth it in my opinion

dunstonh

Just adding to my earlier one that the bank actually did the right thing here. Rather than selling you PPI and adding it to the loan as a single premium, they put in place a much better product and set it up correctly as a standalone monthly premium plan.

if the banks had done this with everyone, there would be no PPI issue.