Personal finance
Liz Davies, a secretary, was prescribed acupuncture for her sinusitis after conventional treatments failed, and she credits the six sessions with curing her condition. Her company's health policy, Clinicare, covered the treatment, as long as the practitioner was recognized and the problem identifiable. This is not an isolated
Personal finance
Mortgage lenders in the UK are facing a sea of confusion as they adhere to new guidelines on calculating annual percentage rates (APRs) on discounted mortgage rates. The Local Authorities' Co-ordinating Body on Food and Trading Standards (LACOTS) has published guidelines stating that lenders should calculate discount-rate APRs in
Personal finance
New homebuyers considering a mortgage should opt for PEPs (Personal Equity Plans) over endowment mortgages, a report by GM Benefit Consultants has found. The study, which compared the financial performance of PEPs, endowment, pension, and repayment mortgages over a 25-year period, revealed that PEPs are likely to return much more
Personal finance
Personal credit companies and storecard and credit-card companies may no longer be able to automatically pass on details of good customers' records to outside agencies without their consent, amid growing concerns about the implications of modern information technology on individuals' right to privacy. The Data Protection Registrar, Eric
Personal finance
The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has issued a report that may force credit-card issuers to take responsibility for transactions gone wrong outside the UK. According to the report, card issuers who deny liability for breaches of contract or misrepresentation by foreign retailers are themselves in breach of their legal
Personal finance
Premiums for car and household insurance can be a significant burden for many people, prompting them to opt for instalment payment plans to spread the cost. However, insurers have expressed concerns that fraudsters and individuals who default on payments are taking advantage of these schemes. To combat this, insurers have
Personal finance
The House of Lords has recently upheld an Equal Opportunities Commission appeal, ruling that the denial of rights to part-time workers in the workplace was tantamount to indirect sexual discrimination. This decision will grant part-time workers, who work less than 16 hours a week, the same protection under the 1978
Personal finance
A married man with two children earning £26,000 will be approximately £23 per month worse off after April, according to figures extracted from the Government by the Labour Party. The reduction in the value of the married man's allowance to 20 per cent and the one percentage
Personal finance
The introduction of personal pensions was supposed to be a welcome reform of Margaret Thatcher's government, allowing individuals to take control of their retirement savings. However, it has led to a £2 billion scandal, with up to 400,000 people left worse off than if they had stayed
Personal finance
Insurers have given a tentative welcome to a new system of security marking for household products, but the Association of British Insurers (ABI) remains skeptical about its effectiveness. The system, devised by Douglas McCartney of Nationwide Property Register (NPR), involves tagging expensive household goods with barcodes that can be registered
Personal finance
The Sunday Times revealed that, despite its reputation as a "consumer champion," the ombudsman required by its terms of appointment to be impartial generally decides more cases in favour of the insurance company than the complainant. Last year, only 33% of cases were decided in favour of the
Personal finance
Many pensioners who suffered significant cuts in their fortnightly allowances last month may be unaware that the Department of Social Security's (DSS) controversial method of assessing shares and managed investments is not the only problem. An incorrect listing of pensioners' investments in the DSS database has led
