First Direct and self employed

[Deano97]

doing OK with claims upheld by Barclays, egg and northern rock.
as a self employed person I feel a little stupid for not reading the small print but that's life.
Im now on to my bank ( First Direct) and I am looking at PPI on a loan. They said I should have checked the covers suitability, I didn't and they have declined my kind offer to relieve them of some cash so have thrown it into the long grass (the Ombudsman).
On a visa credit card opened in 1998 with my current account the same applied ie PPI however they are saying again I should have checked my suitability. I was sold as Visa Cardholder Repayment protector as a ticked box as part of my account opening form in 1998. Is this a relevant point as I had already ticked my employments status as self employed.?
Added to that they suggest I could have claimed unemployment by registering with the inland revenue. I am assuming the requirement here would have been to liquidate my business

If anyone has any suggestions or experience how the selling or acceptance of a PPI insurance to the self employed can have been anything other than misselling I would love to hear.

Looking at the ombudsman website it would appear that it is more difficult for a self employed person to make a claim their business has to cease trading and permanently qualify for unemployment cover - which is very different from temporary unemployment
From the FO site
'Having considered the evidence, we concluded that the terms of Mr J's policy - in relation to self-employment - amounted to a significant and onerous restriction, and that the loan provider should have brought them to his attention. We also pointed out that the policy had been recommended to Mr J - and that it was the loan provider's obligation to ensure that it was suitable for him.
So he should not have needed to wade through the small print of his policy documents himself to check that it was suitable. In light of the evidence, we took the view that had Mr J been made aware of the implications of the policy, it is unlikely he would have taken it out.'

any help would be very gratefully accepted

[Mineral1]

Re: First Direct and self employed

Hi have a look at http://www.lendingstandardsboard.org...criberlist.php
First Direct is a signed up participant under the HSBC umbrella..... Have a look through the actual code of conduct which is on the website and you can write back to First Direct and helpfully point out the parts of their own code they seem to have misplaced
:tongue2:

[Deano97]

Re: First Direct and self employed

Ive just scanned this but cannot find any instance of code breaching - unless you know otherwise ??? Much appreciated

Hi have a look at http://www.lendingstandardsboard.org...criberlist.php
First Direct is a signed up participant under the HSBC umbrella..... Have a look through the actual code of conduct which is on the website and you can write back to First Direct and helpfully point out the parts of their own code they seem to have misplaced
:tongue2:

[Deano97]

Re: First Direct and self employed

Also First direct are saying that as a self employed person I was still eligible to claim for unemployment by registering with the inland revenue and proving that income was not sufficient to meet day to day requirements. They also state 'we confirm as with any insurance, you would have to meet certain conditions, stipulated by the underwriters and confirmed in the PPI policy document.

Is this a new tactic for banks dealing with the self employed?

[Mineral1]

Re: First Direct and self employed

Ignore last post... Tried to do two jobs simultaneously...:tinysmile_twink_t2:
Any contract has to meet tests of being fair, clear, and unambiguous.
Could you please post up a copy of the policy apres deleting, hiding or obscuring personal details... Ta..... :tongue2:

[Deano97]

Re: First Direct and self employed

Hi

Ive uploaded the covering letter as well and have looked at the ombudsman website and found 1 parallel case
My draft to them so far is as follows

1. You do not explain if either of the loan protect options was pre-ticked and whether
this would have been a default ‘Yes’ or default ‘No’ option as this is not
clear from the print out.

2. You fail to demonstrate examples of how this would have been displayed on the
screen at the time the application was made
.
3. You have failed to acknowledge that when to loan was taken out I was self employed
and that I would not have been covered by such cover.

4.That the wording on the visa cardholder repayment protector states ‘we recommend
you take out this valuable protection which costs just 72p per £100 of
outstanding balance and is designed to protect your card repayments if
accident, sickness, unemployment or death prevents you form being able to pay
them yourself, subject to eligibility and policy conditions’.

5.Within the document entitled visa cardholder repayment protector policy
document there is no mention of restrictions to the policy for the self-employed
in section 1 ‘Eligibility’ and neither in section 5 ‘Policy exclusions’.

6. There is no mention in the policy that as a self-employed person I would have to
cease trading and declare this to the inland revenue before I could claim any benefit from this policy

Additionally on the ombudsman website
‘We noted that the policy did allow self-employed people to claim for
unemployment. However, it would only pay out if a self-employed person had
become unemployed because they had “permanently ceased to trade”.
Looking at the detailed policy terms, this meant that Mr M would have had to
file his final accounts and tax returns – and formally wind up his business –
before making a claim.

It seemed to us that a self-employed person would have far more difficulty making
a claim than someone who wasn’t self-employed. Unlike someone who wasn’t
self-employed, Mr M couldn’t claim if he became unemployed temporarily. And
if Mr M was winding up his business, the requirement to file accounts would
have delayed the claim being paid – and possibly incurred accountant’s costs –
at a time when he would likely be financially stretched.

In our view, the policy terms were significant – and onerous for Mr M.The building society had a
responsibility to provide Mr and Mrs M with clear, fair and not misleading
information about the policy – so they could make an informed choice about
taking it out.

The building society couldn’t provide us with sufficient
evidence that they had done this. We decided that if Mr and Mrs
M had been given clear information about the terms relating to self-employment,
they would have realised that the MPPI policy wasn’t suitable for Mr M – and it
was very unlikely that they would have taken it out.

We upheld the complaint – telling the building society to refund all the premiums that
Mr and Mrs M had paid, plus 8% interest. ‘

Thank you so much

[Deano97]

Re: First Direct and self employed

Too much information ?

[Kati]

Re: First Direct and self employed

Too much information ?

Hi Deano ... I've just edited the spacing of your post (#6) to make it a bit easier to read Don't worry ... I'm sure you'll get a response from one of the knowledgeable Beagles soon.

K x

[Deano97]

Re: First Direct and self employed

Too much information ?

Thanks Kati

[Deano97]

Re: First Direct and self employed

Hi Mineral1

just wondering if you had any thoughts on this??

Br

[Victoria27]

Re: First Direct and self employed

Hi Deano,

Thank you for the information.

I am self employed and as such got 16 cases upheld.
But there are different type of self-employment and in some cases businesses state that they cover self-employment. It is not anything new. It has always been like that.
Some banks say that their policy do not cover self-employed at all, but some state they do and the question is what type of policy you have and what type of self employment.

If you are not covered, then it is much easier to win your case.

So,
1. What sort of self employment is your work?

2. I will have a look at your insurance document (you attached it in your post, I believe, correct?) within next few days and will try to understand if they can insist that you are covered. Or they cannot.

I'll have a look and will try to post in a few days.

Best,

Victoria

[Deano97]

Re: First Direct and self employed

Hi Deano,

Thank you for the information.

I am self employed and as such got 16 cases upheld.
But there are different type of self-employment and in some cases businesses state that they cover self-employment. It is not anything new. It has always been like that.
Some banks say that their policy do not cover self-employed at all, but some state they do and the question is what type of policy you have and what type of self employment.

If you are not covered, then it is much easier to win your case.

So,
1. What sort of self employment is your work?

2. I will have a look at your insurance document (you attached it in your post, I believe, correct?) within next few days and will try to understand if they can insist that you are covered. Or they cannot.

I'll have a look and will try to post in a few days.

Best,

Victoria

Hi Victoria
thank you for looking at this.
in answer to your question I am a self employed furniture designer/maker specialising in exterior furniture . As a result the work can be seasonal.

please let me know if you need any further information

currently I have cases upheld by barclays (ppi on loans) by Northern rock ( mortgage protection) and by egg (visa ppi)

[Victoria27]

Re: First Direct and self employed

Hi Victoria
thank you for looking at this.
in answer to your question I am a self employed furniture designer/maker specialising in exterior furniture . As a result the work can be seasonal.

please let me know if you need any further information

currently I have cases upheld by barclays (ppi on loans) by Northern rock ( mortgage protection) and by egg (visa ppi)

Thank you for that information.

I'll look into it properly, from what I can see now I think that with your self-employment you might have a case where "unemyment can be a regular feature" or "employment can be seasonal". I would imagine that "enempleyment can be a regular feature" fit the description of your job. If that is the case, then you can never be covered by any PPI as every PPI has that exclusion.
That means you could never claim enempleyment benefit, which means that you paid for something you could not ever get.

In case of advised sale it would mean you were not advised correctly, in case of non advised sale that means you were not given a relevant information, including main features, exclusions and limitations, which should have been done in a good time before sale was completed to enable you to make an informed decision.
I will try to look at your policy on Sunday, (if it is attached) and I think I will find somewhere amongs listed exclusions one where it is said that they will not cover you for unemployment if unemployment is a regular feature of your job. Every PPI has that exclusion.
If you can explain clearly that in your line of work unemployment is indeed a regular feature of your job, than it makes it impossible to imagine that you made "an informed decision" to buy an expensive financial product after being told that it does not cover people of your job description. I believe it clearly shows that you were not told about that exclusion, which makes it mis-sale.
The business is obliged to informe you about exclusions before sale is completed, not after. It is not enough to remind you to read a policy.
I am happy to suggest some relevant FCA and the FOS references to support it.
If you walls like it, I can post relevant links for you.
It usually helps to make your points stronger, when they are supported by the rules and guidelines from FCA and the FOS.
It is not surprising that other companies refund, they are doing what they should.
However some companies, unfortunately, take this line of behaviour, hoping that you will not pursue your complaint.

I suggest to have your national insurance contribution statements ready, which will show class 2 for self employed. The business often ask to supply that, knowing that it takes about a 3 weeks to obtain, and hoping you will not bother ,so better to get it ready, just in case.
Then I suggest you email to the CEO office with a complaint about how your case was investigated and explains why their rejection was wrong.
CEO office often put things right.
I am happy to help you with ideas for that letter as I wrote a lot of them. Just, please, be aware that my English, being my second language, is not perfect.
In that email to the CEO it is good to refer to the relevant FCA guidelines to show that company was in breach of them while investigating your complaint.
You can give them further 2 weeks to put it right prior to you escalating this matter.

In many cases it will sort it out as they will understand that you are prepared to go further.
You have 6 month deadline after their initial rejection to refer it to the Ombudsman.
I'll try to be back to you soon.
At the moment I have few very time consuming projects, so I may not reply straight away, but I'll be in touch again soon.
Best,
Victoria

[Deano97]

Re: First Direct and self employed

Victoria - your help is very much appreciated
thank you

[dpham6761]

Re: First Direct and self employed

Really nice. Well done.
Cheers,
Resmas