There have been widespread investigations into the payment protection sector with complaints of mis-selling of the cover and price inflated premiums. While this is true, it is some of the major companies selling the product that are at fault not the actual policies themselves. The biggest problem is with the high street lenders and banks. While they might be fully trained to offer loans and credit cards and can you a great deal on these, when it comes to selling the protection for them, in a lot of cases, they tend to tell you very little and coerce you in to buying their cover without fully explaining it. For this reason - and for greed - many consumers have found they weren't able to claim on a policy due to the hidden exclusions within the policy.

Loan protection can be considered a necessity if you consider the fact of how you would continue to make your monthly loan repayments if you should come out of work due to an accident, unemployment or sickness. Without the policy you could be struggling and indeed get behind on your repayments, whereas if you have the cover then after you have been out for work for a specified period of time the cover will give you an income to ensure you can continue with the repayments.

The answer to the question is really all about where you choose to take the cover from. If you take it from the high street lenders and banks without first investigating other options, then yes you could be ripped-off. However, if you buy it the sensible way by researching the marketplace first and going with an independent provider, then it should be classed as a necessity.