Arnold Schwarzenegger the new face of PPI campaign

Regulator campaign aims to put billions back into the pockets of consumers

Arnold Schwarzenegger the new face of PPI campaign

Insurance News

By Lucy Hook

The Terminator, a former Governor of California, and now, the face of insurance – Arnold Schwarzenegger is the new figurehead of a Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) campaign on payment protection insurance (PPI), it was revealed today.

The Austrian-born actor and ex-politician will be the face of a new campaign launching today which aims to raise awareness over the deadline to make a PPI complaint, the FCA announced this afternoon. The advert includes an animatronic model of Schwarzenegger’s head urging people to decide about making a complaint before the deadline on August 29, 2019.

More than £27.4 billion has been paid out to customers since the FCA introduced PPI complaint rules in 2011. Now, the authority has introduced the deadline in the hope that it will nudge people into checking if they had PPI, and deciding whether they wish to make a complaint.

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The two-year campaign, which will appear on TV, online and on outdoor advertising across the UK, comes alongside a new, dedicated phone line to assist customers as well as updated FCA website pages which give more help to those making a decision.

Today also marks the start of a new basis for complaining about PPI, which means that customers could be entitled to compensation even if they were not mis-sold. Customers who have previously complained about PPI and had the complaint rejected, may now be entitled to compensation if the provider earned a high level of commission from selling PPI, the FCA said.

“Our campaign aims to cut through the noise on PPI. We want to encourage people to decide whether to find out if they had PPI and whether to complain or not. Our message, and Arnie’s, is ‘do it now’ and I urge people to make a decision before the deadline on August 29, 2019,” Andrew Bailey, FCA chief executive, said in a release.

The campaign is being paid for by the 18 firms which had the most PPI complaints, including banks, building societies and credit card providers. Firms have also agreed to a number of steps which aim to make the complaints process as easy as possible for customers, including:
  • Providing an option for people to submit their complaint online
  • Ensuring that complaint forms are as easy to understand as possible and don’t put customers off complaining
  • Providing support to vulnerable customers who may need extra help to submit complaints
  • Providing useful and free-to-use PPI checking processes

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