Thousands of householders are expected to receive refunds on their payment protection insurance after the Central Bank ordered seven companies to conduct a review of their books to weed out mis-sold policies.
The seven firms, mainly banks, may now face fines from the regulator for selling the insurance to people who were excluded from making a claim.
Payment protection insurance pays out on your personal loans, mortgage or credit card if you become ill or are laid off. However, many of those sold policies would not have qualified for a payout as they were not working in the first place.
Bank of Ireland and AIB have already refunded 13,000 customers, while more may yet be entitled to refunds, according to The Irish Independent.
A detailed probe of the sales data of the seven firms, which also include credit card companies, has found evidence of mis-selling. Each of the companies has now been told to go back to 2007 to check if people were sold insurance that was of no use to them. These reviews will be carried out by an independent third party.
An estimated 340,000 payment protection policies were sold between 2007 and 2011.
