Five of the major high street banks have pulled out of a controversial payment protection insurance (PPI) market, pre-empting a ban by the Competition Commission.
Alliance and Leicester, Barclays, Co-operative Bank, Lloyds Banking Group (Bank of Scotland, Lloyds TSB, Halifax) and RBS/NatWest will stop selling single premium PPI with unsecured personal loans, by the end of January.
Conventionally offered at the same time as a loan, PPI covers the debt repayment for a few months or years if the customer is not able to pay due to accident, sickness or unemployment . However, these policies are usually very expensive for the level of cover they provide and many policies have significant exemptions making it difficult for policyholders to make a valid claim.
Recently, Which? found that up to 2 million PPI policies have been sold to people who may never be able to make a claim and getting a refund on PPI policies, paid for upfront with a single premium, is also very difficult.




