You may have heard in the news a couple of weeks ago that the UK banks lost their court challenge against compensating customers for mis-sold payment protection insurance.

So some of you who have taken out payment protection insurance to covers loans and may consider that you have been mis-sold this. The BBC site has some useful advice as to what to do

Today Lloyds have announced that they have set money aside to cover claims made and this will put pressure on other banks to follow.

This is a link to Lloyds advice to their customers who believe they will be able to claim

When I heard the news about the UK banks losing their challenge I wondered how long would it be until ambulance chasing outfits started cold calling people about making claims for payment protection insurance. I got my first phone call on Monday and am sure that I will get more. A woman with an Indian accent rang me calling herself Emma (a good traditional Indian name ). I knew what they were up to straight away and put the phone down on her. There will be outfits out there keen to make a fast buck out of people. But the chances are that any claims people have they can deal with the banks direct without having to incur any costs.

And if you are not satisfied with your bank, there is the Financial Ombudsman Service to complain to.

The only payment protection insurance I've ever had was on my mortgage and I was employed. As soon as I became self-employed I knew that I would not be able to claim on my insurance policy (to be able to claim I would have to show that I had ceased trading which wasn't going to happen and had final accounts agreed with HMRC) so I cancelled my policy and know that I would not be able to make any claim for mis-sold insurance.