Swinton insurance hit by regulator censorship

Insurance broker Swinton has today revealed a £770,000 fine from the Financial Services Authority (FSA) in relation to techniques used to sell Payment Protection Insurance (PPI), one of the more controversial insurance policies of late. It has also been revealed that Swinton will be repaying PPI premiums to 350,000 customers who automatically had PPI added to the cost of their insurance during a 16 month period between December 2006 and March 2008.



PPI is a very controversial subject at the moment with the Office of Fair Trading having lost an appeal by a number of UK banks after looking at the possibility of outlawing PPI at the point of sale. While the Office of Fair Trading is still looking into various sales techniques with regards to PPI, the decision to uphold the appeal against a "cooling off period" was something of a blow.



As with the Swinton insurance situation, more and more UK consumers are finding out that PPI was automatically added to a number of financial instruments without sales people checking to see whether they already had their own insurance in place. In simple terms, PPI offers an insurance against illness and job loss, thereby ensuring that customers are still able to pay various repayments relating to insurance, loans and mortgages for example.