Estimates show that 64 million PPI policies have been sold in the UK, mostly between 1990 and 2010, but some as far back as the 1970s. Since the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) found that PPI was often mis-sold, more than £33bn has been paid back to people who complained about the sale of PPI. It’s hardly surprising that PPI has been a constant presence in our daily lives for a number of years.
As Claims Management Companies promote their services, we’ve seen radio ads, TV ads, automated phone calls, billboard posters, text messages and more. The FCA has been running a series of ‘Arnie’ adverts, reminding us the deadline is approaching for submitting new claims (29 August 2019) – after that you lose your right to have your complaint assessed.
At Maximise IT we’ve been supporting a number of financial institutions rise to the challenge of managing and processing the avalanche of claims. Small, and not so small, armies of people have been needed to deal with the complexity and volume of the claims. The cost of processing these claims is enormous, burdening the business even before the customer pay-out has been made. When you consider the complexities involved, it’s easy to see why financial institutions have had to work hard to respond to the claims. PPI was sold over many decades, and much changed over that time:
System changes to support new products and services
Rationalisation to reduce costs
Changing technology landscapes
Mergers and de-mergers
Customers have also undergone a lot of change in that period such as:
Address changes
Changing name
Opening / closing / converting accounts
Multiple mortgages and re-mortgages
Loans for cars, home improvements, debt consolidation
Store cards, catalogues, overdrafts, hire purchase etc
Each mis-sold customer needs to be compensated as if they had not been mis-sold - including compound interest. Mix that with a few decades of data, time constraints to resolve each complaint, and a few hundred thousand claims submitted each week and the size of the challenge becomes clear.
Most of the companies we work with have become adept at dealing with the volume of complaints, at least up to this point. We’d like to claim just a little bit of that credit because of the services we’ve provided to manage, streamline and automate parts of the process. However, predictions are that the number of claims due to be submitted between now and the deadline will increase dramatically. At Maximise IT we’re continuing to work with our customers to help them address this challenge. For many others in the industry, re-visiting their approach to PPI may become a necessity, rather than a luxury, over the coming months. If you are one of the organisations yet to engage with us, it’s not too late. The Maximise IT solution can be tailored quickly and efficiently to help address key challenges in your business, delivering real benefit at pace. If PPI ramp up is on your mind then why not get in touch to see how other organisations are using Maximise IT to successfully manage the final phase of their PPI programmes.