Payment protection insurance (PPI): mis-selling claims and the 2019 deadline

Payment protection insurance, almost always shortened to PPI, was an insurance policy sold alongside borrowing. Its purpose was to keep your loan or credit card repayments going if an accident, sickness or unemployment stopped you earning¹. It became the most complained-about financial product in British history: millions of complaints were made and over £34 billion was claimed back².

The window for complaining has closed. The Financial Conduct Authority set a deadline of 29 August 2019 for complaining to a business about the sale of PPI, and the Financial Ombudsman Service states plainly that it is now too late to complain about the sale of PPI in the ordinary way¹. There are a few narrow exceptions, described below, but for most people the question today is not "how do I claim" but "what was PPI, did I have it, and what can still be done".

The PPI deadline has passed: what that means now

The FCA's deadline of 29 August 2019 applied to complaints made to the business that sold the PPI. If you had not complained to your provider by that date, you cannot claim money back for PPI in the normal way². The ombudsman can only consider a PPI complaint if it was made to the business in time¹.

There are a small number of routes that survive the deadline:

• FSCS claims about failed firms. The Financial Services Compensation Scheme states that the 29 August 2019 deadline "does not apply to FSCS"⁴. The scheme can only accept a PPI claim if the advice was received on or after 14 January 2005, and you claim against the firm that advised you to take out the policy, not necessarily the firm you had the policy with⁴.
• Exceptional circumstances. You can only make a claim directly to your lender or through the Financial Ombudsman in exceptional circumstances, such as serious illness or a technical issue that prevented you from making a claim before the August 2019 deadline⁸.
• Complaints about policies you actually used. You can still make a complaint about PPI if you used your policy, but any payout you received when you claimed will likely be taken off your compensation⁵.
• Court claims. The original time limit for making a court claim was six years from when the PPI policy ended, but a later ruling means the period now runs six years from the end of your underlying credit agreement, such as your credit card or loan⁸.

One further route closed earlier: the government's guidance on PPI after bankruptcy states that the right to claim compensation for mis-sold PPI has now ended in that context too⁹.

What payment protection insurance was and what it covered

PPI was an insurance policy that let you keep making loan repayments if life changes meant that was no longer possible⁴. It protected your payments if you had an accident, became sick or became unemployed¹⁰. For most consumers, the most important benefits were cover for accident, disability and unemployment¹¹.

It was not the same thing as income protection insurance. The ombudsman notes that income protection policies are not the same as loan protection or PPI, which usually only provided short-term benefits¹². Where a claim was paid out on PPI sold with a credit card, the monthly benefit was often somewhere between three and ten percent of what was owed¹³. Case studies show how this worked in practice: one monthly-premium credit card policy cost 79p for each £100 of the statement balance and provided a benefit of 5% of the outstanding balance to be paid each month for 12 months¹⁴; another provided 10% of the statement balance at the time of the claim, paid each month for 12 months¹⁴.

There were two main types of policy¹¹:

• Single-premium policies, where the consumer made a one-off, upfront payment. On some loans, the whole cost of the PPI premium was added upfront to the amount borrowed, so interest was charged on the insurance as part of the debt¹³.
• Regular-premium policies, where the consumer paid by the month. On other loans, including mortgages, borrowers mostly paid for the PPI by a monthly premium¹³. PPI sold with credit cards was also paid for by monthly premiums, added to what was owed on the card at the end of the month¹³.

Cover was often shorter than the borrowing it sat beside. In one ombudsman case study, a business agreed a 15-year secured loan of £60,000 and arranged a five-year, single-premium PPI policy alongside it¹⁴. In another, a consumer took out a three-year loan to buy a car with a single-premium PPI policy that offered only a limited refund if cancelled early¹¹.

Products PPI was sold with, and the names it went by

PPI was sold with loans, credit cards, mortgages and other types of credit too, like car finance or catalogue accounts¹³. It was most often sold with credit cards, store cards, mortgages, personal loans and secured loans, point of sale loans, flexible loans, business loans, overdrafts, hire-purchase agreements and catalogue shopping accounts¹³.

Some "stand alone" PPI policies were also sold, that were not linked to particular credit¹³. Stand-alone regular-premium policies were often sold alongside mortgages and were known as mortgage PPI or MPPI; unlike single-premium PPI, a regular-premium policy sold alongside a loan does not form part of the credit¹⁵.

Businesses did not always call it PPI. The ombudsman lists the names used, including credit card repayments cover, credit repayment protector, mortgage repayments protector, mortgage care, creditcare, loanguard, payment protection cover and creditguard¹³. If you had one of these products on old credit, it was PPI in substance.

The scale of the selling was enormous. Between January 2005 and December 2007, Egg alone sold PPI policies alongside its credit card to 106,000 customers¹⁶. PPI became the most complained-about product the ombudsman had ever handled: payment protection insurance accounted for 46% of all complaints since the service was set up in 2000¹⁷, and 25% of complaints compared with 21% for mortgage endowments and 7% for bank and credit-card charges¹⁸.

How PPI was mis-sold

Mis-selling did not usually mean the policy was fake. It meant the policy was sold in a way that was unfair, unsuitable or not properly explained. The ombudsman sets out the sorts of failings that made a sale mis-sold, including where it was not made clear to you that you were taking out PPI and you did not actually want it¹³. Which? lists further grounds, including where you were not told about any significant exclusions under the policy, where your loan or finance agreement lasted longer than the PPI and it was not clear the insurance would run out first, and where you had to pay for the PPI as a single payment and it was not clear the cost would be added to the loan with interest on top⁸.

Common problems included:

• Exclusions that were never disclosed. Some policies did not cover people who were self-employed, casual or temporary contract workers, or consumers on maternity leave at the time the policy was taken out¹¹. In one case study, the significant exclusions, including that the policy did not cover pre-existing medical conditions, were at the heart of the complaint¹⁴.
• Cover that did not fit the person. Several ombudsman case studies involved self-employed applicants sold policies whose unemployment cover did not fit their situation, and those complaints were upheld¹⁴.
• Costs and benefits not brought to attention. Where a business did not bring the cost and benefits to the consumer's attention when they took out a policy, the ombudsman may uphold the complaint if it concludes this would have affected the consumer's decision¹¹.
• Refund terms not explained. In one case, the ombudsman found the business had not made it sufficiently clear that, on early cancellation, the consumer would not receive a pro rata refund of the premium and interest costs¹⁴.

Not every complaint succeeded. The ombudsman's case studies include upheld complaints and rejected ones, covering both advised and non-advised sales, single-premium and monthly-premium policies, on loans and credit cards between 2006 and 2008¹⁴. A complaint about a sale that was properly explained, with suitable cover and disclosed exclusions, could fail.

Premiums, benefits and compensation

When the ombudsman upheld a mis-selling complaint, the redress depended on the type of policy and how it was paid for.

For regular-premium policies, the business was told to refund all the premiums the consumer paid and pay interest at 8% per year simple, with no need to restructure the loan because the policy was not part of the credit¹⁹. For single-premium PPI attached to a loan, redress meant cancelling the policy where it remained in force, restructuring the loan so the amount owed, the monthly repayments and the total interest reflected the removal of the premium, and refunding how much more the consumer had paid each month, with interest added to each overpayment¹⁵.

Credit card redress worked differently again. The ombudsman ordered a hypothetical reconstruction of the credit card account to find out what the balance would have been without PPI, then payment of the difference between the current balance and that reconstructed balance, plus interest on any credit balance¹⁵. It was usually assumed the consumer would have made the same payments without PPI as they made with it¹⁵, though for consumers who consistently paid the minimum, the ombudsman accepted they might have paid the slightly smaller minimum payment without the PPI charge¹⁵. Consumers who cleared their balance in full each month were treated as having lost the extra amount they paid each month, plus interest on each overpayment¹⁵. Where a consumer was in arrears, the business first had to identify whether any arrears related to the addition of PPI and, if so, write them off¹⁵.

The ombudsman's worked examples show the size of typical payouts: £2,463.13 on a regular-premium policy with 86 monthly premiums of £23.15¹⁹; £2,310.58 on a credit card with incomplete records¹⁹; £3,836.30 on a credit card with complete records¹⁹; and £2,995, including interest of £555, on mis-sold PPI alongside a £10,000 loan that had been sold on to a third party¹⁹. Where the consumer had made a successful claim under the mis-sold policy, the business usually deducted the value of that claim from the compensation¹⁹. Where records did not go back to the start of the PPI, the business had to take reasonable steps to get the information and work out the approximate loss, including asking the consumer for records and making reasonable assumptions¹⁹.

The overall totals were on a different scale. Between April 2011 and November 2015, firms paid out £22.2 billion in redress to more than 12 million customers³. Claims management companies received an estimated £3.8 to £5 billion of PPI compensation in the same period²⁰, largely because their fees in PPI claims typically ran at about 25% of the value of the claim plus VAT⁶.

Complaints after the deadline: what the numbers show

PPI dominated the ombudsman's workload for over a decade. In the financial year 2011/2012, 60% of new cases were about the sale of PPI, with the number rising to 157,716, the highest figure at that point¹⁸. PPI alone accounted for 2.3 million complaints in 2014, which was 51% of all complaints that year³. In March 2016 the ombudsman received its one-and-a-half millionth complaint about PPI²¹.

The numbers show how the market worked. In 2011/2012, businesses had failed to send consumers a final response within the eight-week timescale in 45% of PPI cases, and 99% of PPI cases were about sales and advice rather than claims or administration¹⁸. In the previous year, 76% of PPI cases involved claims-management companies¹⁸, and over three quarters of PPI complaints received in 2015/2016 were referred on behalf of consumers by commercial claims management companies²¹. By 2013/2014, complaints made by consumers themselves had risen to 24.5%¹⁷, and by 2017/2018 claims managers were involved in 80% of PPI complaints received, down from 85% the year before²⁴. PPI accounted for 54% of complaints in the first quarter of 2018/2019²⁵ and 41% of helpline enquiries in 2012/2013²⁶.

Outcomes shifted over time. In 2009/2010, 89% of PPI complaints were upheld in the consumer's favour²⁷. By 2020/2021, the ombudsman upheld 17% of PPI complaints²⁸, reflecting that by then most valid claims had already been made.

After the deadline, the numbers fell away but did not reach zero. The ombudsman recorded 93,770 PPI complaints between 9 July 2019 and 8 July 2020, of which 541 came from outside the UK²⁹. In 2020/2021 there were 42,040 new PPI complaints²⁸; in 2021/2022, 5,369 were opened and 18,243 resolved³⁰. The tail is now very small: in the third quarter of 2025/26, 12 new PPI complaints about mortgage PPI were opened³¹.

If you still hold a PPI policy: checking the cover

A small number of people kept PPI policies rather than complaining about them, and some mortgage PPI remains in force. If you still hold a policy, the cover is only as good as its terms and your current circumstances.

Most PPI policies excluded or limited cover for pre-existing medical conditions entirely; some covered them later if the consumer stayed symptom-free for a defined period¹¹. Many policies had an upper age limit: from that point on, many policies only provided cover for hospitalisation, accidental death and permanent total disability, while the cost of cover usually stayed the same¹¹. Many policies also only covered the consumer whose name appeared first on the credit or loan agreement, which matters for joint borrowing¹¹.

Where a mis-selling complaint was upheld but the consumer expressly wanted cover to continue, the rules provided an alternative: the existing cover should continue until the end of the existing policy term, with the complainant paying the price of the alternative regular-premium contract and able to cancel at any time³².

If your circumstances have changed, the things to check are whether your employment status still fits the policy's exclusions, whether you have passed its age limit, and whether any medical condition you have developed falls within its pre-existing condition rules. The policy documents, not the salesperson's original description, are what count. For a fuller picture of how short-term cover of this kind works today, see accident, sickness and unemployment insurance and how income protection insurance works.

Where PPI cover and complaints do not apply

Many people who suspected they had PPI turned out not to have it. The ombudsman's approach to "was there a PPI policy?" disputes sets out what businesses had to do: carry out a reasonable search of their systems, including archive systems, to trace the consumer and identify whether there is or was a PPI policy; review all available information including changed details; avoid too narrow a search approach; ask for further information if needed; and clearly set out in their final response the level of investigation carried out with supporting documentation³³.

The case studies show how often the answer was no. In one, all the documents showed no PPI policy had been present on the consumer's account, and the claims-management company accepted this and did not pursue the complaint further³³. In another, the business provided evidence showing there was no PPI policy on the loan account, and the consumer accepted the ombudsman's opinion³³. In a third, a copy of the consumer credit agreement confirmed no PPI was taken out at the start of the loan³³. In a fourth, the ombudsman was unable to establish the existence of a PPI policy on the credit card account, so the complaint was not one it could consider³³.

Complaints also had their own time limits before the 2019 deadline. The FSA rules were clear that consumers had the longer of six years from the event complained about, or three years from when they should reasonably have become aware that they may have grounds for complaint¹⁶.

Protection for the policies themselves is separate from mis-selling redress. If an insurer fails, the FSCS covers payment protection insurance and other general insurances at 90% of the claim³⁴. And if you have a complaint about a claims management company rather than a lender, that is a separate process handled through the Claims Management Ombudsman, and you can complain about a claims company through the government's own route³⁵.

Where to get help with a PPI complaint

The ombudsman describes complaining about PPI as easy and free⁵. That has not changed, even though the deadline has passed: if you believe you fall within one of the exceptions, the process is the same. You complain to the business first, and if it rejects the complaint or eight weeks pass without a final response, the ombudsman can look at it³³.

If you are checking whether you ever had PPI, you can go to the lender yourself. You just need your name, date of birth and relevant previous addresses². Claims management companies can help you make certain types of claims against financial services providers for a fee³⁵, but nothing they could do was exclusive to them: their expected steps before referral were obtaining paperwork, carrying out a preliminary check, providing enough information for a business systems search, completing the PPI consumer questionnaire and sending it to the business³³, all things a consumer could do directly for free.

Where the firm that sold the PPI has failed, the FSCS is the right body: it can consider PPI claims where the advice was received on or after 14 January 2005, and you claim against the firm that advised you to take out the policy, not the firm you had the policy with⁴. For anything else, the ombudsman's PPI pages set out the process, and its consumer leaflet states the position in one line: it is too late to complain about the sale of PPI now, and the deadline to complain was 29 August 2019¹. The ombudsman noted at the time that although the deadline for complaining to businesses was 29 August, it would be dealing with PPI for some time yet³⁶, which is what the small residual numbers now show³¹.