Released on: March 5, 2008, 6:19 am

Press Release Author: BeyondPR

Industry: Financial

Press Release Summary: Firms referring far too many valid compensation claims to FOS

Press Release Body: Leading regulated claims management firm BrunelFranklin.com
agrees with The Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) that PPI compensation claims are
set to rise this year and that an unnecessarily high percentage are being referred
to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS). FOS recently issued a statement outlining
the record number of PPI claims during January 2008 and the expected further
increase in PPI compensation claims throughout the year. Almost as many PPI claims
were recorded in January 2008 as in the whole of 2007.

Anthony M Sultan, managing director of BrunelFranklin.com and its specialist PPI
compensation service, Conkers.co.uk, said: "We totally agree with FOS that firms are
not dealing with complaints properly in the first instance, resulting in a
substantial amount of cases unnecessarily being referred to them.

"Many of our clients were not eligible for PPI in the first place. To now have their
claims rejected, with the only alternatives being an appeal to FOS, or litigation,
is adding insult to injury. These PPI vendors should be promptly dealing with these
claims. In our opinion clear cases of mis-selling are being referred to FOS for no
apparent reason. We can only assume that PPI vendors are either stringing claimants
along for as long as possible, or alternatively, putting obstacles in their way in
the hope that many will give up their fight for justice. Some firms seem completely
unwilling to fully investigate their clients' complaints and take responsibility for
their obvious mis-sales. As a consequence, FOS has admitted it is snowed under by
the number of cases referred to it.

"FOS should be permitted to devote its energies to providing an Ombudsman service as
its name suggests, rather than being used as the first port of call for firms to
outsource their claims handling procedures to. There is no pressure on firms to
uphold valid complaints at the moment and we agree with FOS that the FSA needs to
tighten up on this as a matter of urgency.

"Recent and ongoing cases that have gone to FOS and shouldn't have, include people
with long term disabilities, retired people, and people on Incapacity and other
benefits. These people should never have been sold PPI and in many cases they didn't
even know they had PPI.

"We have handled many claims where clients come to claim on a policy they are told
that they are excluded from claiming because of profession, previous medical
conditions, or they already have sufficient cover already from their employer's
schemes."
FOS said recently that "There was a record number of complaints about PPI in January
and the number is increasing month-on-month. The fact that so many are being upheld
suggests that firms aren\'t doing enough to deal with these complaints before they
come to us. It bares comparison with the early days of endowment policy complaints,
where firms were simply turning complaints down and leaving it to the Ombudsman to
deal with. We will talk with trade bodies and firms to ensure they follow our
guidance on processing these claims and deal with more of them before they get to
us."
ENDS

Notes to editors
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REF: BFL292 - FOS snowed under



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