In its report on the PPI market Defaqto reveals that too many customers are either unaware that they can shop around for PPI, or do not know where to go for alternative quotes.
The report predicts that it “is quite possible that the annual rate of complaints will run into the high thousands and possibly even tens of thousands” although the number of complaints is unlikely to top complaint received over endowments.
“Consumers are becoming more aware of the all the problems starting to surface in the PPI market,” says Brian Brown, the report author and Defaqto’s Head of Insurance.
Mr Brown went on to make the point that insurers and lenders should consider opening up their PPI policies to the customers of rivals. “For instance, there’s no reason why a customer buying a loan from one bank could not buy their associated PPI policy through a different bank,” he said.
The consequence of complaints about payment protection insurance is that more consumers will face increased costs as income and profits to both lenders and insurers generated from PPI products declines significantly in the coming years.
It is predicted that this will increase the price of unsecured loans, credit card rates and charges and could ultimately lead to the introduction of compulsory bank charges.