So now we know. The annual cost to consumers of the banks’ payment protection racket is £1.4 billion. That’s £186 extra for each of the 7.5 million consumers who bought loan cover last year. And that is not some back-of-a-fag-packet calculation by a consumer group - it is the considered opinion of the Competition Commission after an exhaustive (some might say overly long) 15-month investigation.
Payment protection insurance (PPI) supposedly covers loan repayments if a borrower is unable to pay because of sickness or unemployment. I say supposedly because in addition to being vastly overpriced, many policies are riddled with exclusions and hard to claim against. That is not just my opinion; it is also the opinion of the Office of Fair Trading, which last