One of Britain's biggest and top ranked insurance brokers, Swinton was yesterday slapped with a ?770,000 fine by the Financial Services Authority (FSA), on charges that the firm was misleading consumers while sell the Payment Protection Insurance (PPI). In addition to the fine, the company was also ordered to refund payments made by as many as 350,000 customers.

FSA's Director of Retail Enforcement, Margaret Cole, shared, "These were deliberate breaches – Swinton was fully aware it should establish a customer's need for PPI before recommending it, yet nearly half a million policies were sold to customers who didn't necessarily require them".

According to FSA, Swinton had simply assumed that customers, in addition to the insurance they had asked for, would be interested in buying PPI, and included its cover cost with the quote for the insurance that the customer had initially demanded, without properly disclosing the same. Swinton's PPI cost ?1.21, but the company was charging an additional ?15 to ?20 without making any attempts to know whether the customers actually wanted the policy or not.

Investigations for the suspected scam began last year when Swinton was forced to pull out of the PPI market. In addition to sending refund to the affected customers, the brokerage firm has been directed to apologize as well.