The consumer watchdog Which ? is advising customers who want to buy insurance to first get financial advice .
Spokesperson Lucy Widenka said that due to the current economic climate, “we would emphasise that consumers should not feel obliged to take out any insurance alongside another financial product until they have sought independent advice”.
She also said that people who needed to budget their finances should use the money they would have spent on credit card payment protection insurance (PPI) for independent financial advice and more solid protection for all their finances.
The organisation recently criticized credit card PPI and called it a useless product that was expensive and poorly designed. Which? said it was frequently mis-sold and would often cover only minimum repayments, meaning an outstanding balance might never be paid back. It offers a checklist for consumers to find out whether or not the product had been mis-sold to them.