Banks struggling to cope with volume of PPI misselling claims
CONTRACTORS hired by banks to process PPI claims are having trouble attracting and keeping staff, according to research published today.
Annual staff turnover has reached more than 50 per cent at the outsourced contractors, financial services recruiter BrightPool said, as there are few staff available who are competent at processing claims and can cope with the enormous pressure of dealing with huge backlogs.
The number of claims is soaring, in part thanks to aggressive marketing by claims management companies.
Analysts now predict that UK banks will have to pay consumers £12bn in compensation for mis-selling the insurance.
Last week Barclays increased its PPI provisions by another £700m to £2bn, and other major banks are expected to follow suit shortly.
“Businesses processing PPI claims have been trying to increase the number of staff dealing with these claims, but they’re swimming against the tide,” said BrightPool’s Angela Hickmore.
“It’s becoming a real struggle to keep staff, as PPI claims handling departments tend to be very high-pressure environments, with extremely repetitive and target-based tasks.”
And claims management firms have made the problem worse by pushing up volumes of false claims, Hickmore added.