Insurance: Payment Protection Insurance

Baroness Sherlock Excerpts

Monday 5th March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally]

My noble friend is right to draw attention to another example of abuse. Where such abuses are brought to our attention, we remove companies from the list of those which are able to offer these services. Again, I emphasise that regulations and protection for the consumer are in place. We possibly need greater awareness among consumers of their rights, and I shall certainly take that back.

[Baroness Sherlock]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a director of the Financial Ombudsman Service. My best guess is that the banks have provisioned about £9 billion for PPI. If about 80 per cent of cases going to the ombudsman come through claims management companies, then at least £2 billion is going to CMCs rather than going back to customers. Given that, will the Minister give the House an undertaking that his department will act to require CMCs to declare their fees up front and to tell customers that they are not required to use them as they could make a claim themselves for free?

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, those are exactly the regulations that pertain to these companies. However, because of the pressure of sales, there is no doubt that people are being misled in that way. We shall need to take further action because, as the noble Baroness rightly says, one does not need a pocket calculator to realise that these companies operate in an area where they can make a lot of money, which should quite properly go into consumers’ pockets.