Sara-Ann Burgess, a longstanding activist for improvements in the market, says now is the time for independent intermediaries in this sector, like British Insurance, to come to the fore and guide their clients towards the policies that will protect them and their families in the coming months.
Burgess said the rise in individual insolvencies across the UK was a macabre indication of how the financial storm in the world of high finance was now dropping to street level and affecting an average 2.4 million families throughout the country.
“In England and Wales there were over 27,000 individual insolvencies in the third quarter of this year. That was up by 8.8% on the previous quarter and almost 5% on the same period last year,” said Burgess.
In Scotland, the picture was a lot worse and individual insolvencies in Q3 totalled 5998. This was up by over 25% of the preceding quarter and by a frightening 70% on the same period a year ago.
“With employers like Royal Bank of Scotland and BT starting to make thousands of people redundant these figures are going to get worse before they get better. Unfortunately there are a lot more people who will find their job coming under threat over the next two or three quarters and in turn they will struggle to remain financially afloat.”
In these tattered financial times, Burgess pleaded with consumers to take a moment to see how they would cope if they were unable to work through accident, sickness or unemployment.
She said: “If there is a little nest egg tucked away for a rainy day or employers offer good redundancy and sick pay packages, then PPI may not be needed. But if there is nothing to break the fall then many people are unfortunately going to be in for a hard landing. We want to try and avoid this at all costs.”
