Report Endowment Misselling Compensation SUCCESSES

mayb_2 · 12 March 2009 at 12:24PM

Chrimo you should ask for copies of the fact find/attitude to risk assesment made at the point of sale. This should show whether the right questions were asked of you, and information gained from you, before you took out your endowment.

The problem with this is that some of us have found paperwork to be altered at a later date to attempt to show we were not averse to risk taking with our purchase. This is the important issue here. They do have to show that they did this assessment and that you knew what you were doing when you bought your endowment. The whole point of a missale is that you did not know that there was a risk this may not pay your mortgage at the end of term. Hope that makes sense. If the paperwork is not in place, in theory at least, the Ombudsman should find against the company who sold it to you. This does not always happen and perhaps it also reflects on the general opinion of the company in question and whether there is a history of successful claims etc.

chrimo · 19 March 2009 at 9:19AM

My correspondence to the companies indeed requests a copy of their endowment file so I will know more when I receive a reply - the endowments were sold to me in 1986, 1989 and 1992 so my recollection of the discussion with each of the advisers is almost zero - but I do remember being convinced by the advisers that endowments were a sound way to cover the loan and maybe more with the bonus payment at expiry so I expect records to in some way support that. thks for the feedback so far...

dunstonh · 19 March 2009 at 10:13AM

My correspondence to the companies indeed requests a copy of their endowment file so I will know more when I receive a reply

Which they do not have to supply if they dont want to when its a complaint.

but I do remember being convinced by the advisers that endowments were a sound way to cover the loan and maybe more with the bonus payment at expiry so I expect records to in some way support that.

Remember that at the point you took all three, no endowment had ever failed to hit target. So, there may have been an emphasis more on the potential than the risk. We have the benefit of hindsight.

I would think the paperwork on the 1986 will be virtually non existent. 1989 will be messy and 1992 will be slightly better but none will be patch on modern standards. However, assuming they agree to review the complaints they should be reviewed based on the rules that were in place at the time and not the rules in place now. If sold by the insurance company itself you may get lucky as many of them seem to have a percentage based approach to upholding complaints at the moment. This can lead to cases being upheld for no obvious reason but another with a similar load of paperwork being rejected.

mayb_2 · 19 March 2009 at 7:58PM

This should not be a question of whether you have a 'lucky' endowment or not - if the policy risk was not explained to you - whether or not they had the rules in place then that they have now - that is the basis of a claim for a missale. The product was misrepresented if it concentrated only on the good times and did not warn of the chance of failure. They cannot hide behind the excuse that it had never failed before (although in reality they do and the ombudsman is prepared to back this stance).

The banks have never had to be bailed out by the taxpayers before either. However, it would appear that the investors in the RBS who have claimed they didn't have the full story on what they bought, now want their money back. Well if would appear that now it is not necessary that you are aware of a risk being present - as they are being offered no win no fee representation at a very high level, one can assume they feel they have a good chance of winning that. As I have said before, how come we have to work so hard to get what after all is only redress not compensation, for endowments sold without the risk being explained?

You cannot have it both ways dunstonh - you cannot say that the reason these things were not likely to have come with a health warning at the time is because they had never failed, and then say that most claims are false ones. If the people selling them didn't understand there was a risk - what hope the person buying it?

dunstonh · 19 March 2009 at 8:40PM

you cannot say that the reason these things were not likely to have come with a health warning at the time is because they had never failed

I didnt say that. I said the emphasis may have been on potential and that was what was remembered. It doesnt mean the risks were not documented or mentioned. They may have been glossed over a bit because at the point of doing it they had never failed.

plynchy · 20 March 2009 at 6:52PM

Hi all, been lurking on here for a while, finally registered now i've got something worthy of posting.

I registered a complaint with Winterthur (formerly Colonial) about endowment mis-selling in May '06, which was rejected on the grounds of not being submitted within the appropriate timescale. So I thought no more of it.

I received a letter yesterday stating they are upholding my original complaint, with an offer of circa £3k. They have shown their redress calculations etc and have also offered to repay any admin costs incurred when I switched to a repayment mortgage.

My question is, is it the norm to accept a first offer under such circumstances? The offer appears reasonable to me, but is there anything else I should look into before accepting?

Ta. :-)

mayb_2 · 20 March 2009 at 7:42PM

When placed in a similar situation plynchy I took my offer to an IFA I knew to work out whether the correct calculator had been used. She told me that it was correct so I accepted it. It can be expensive to do this though.

If they have shown in their calculations that you are being put back into a situation you would have been in with a straight repayment mortgage - ie taking into account the percentages likely to have been paid at the time in interest and therefore the amount you would have paid off your mortgage at this point in time, then perhaps you should accept it. You have said it appears reasonable to you.

There is a calculation used by the Ombudsman and by companies to work out redress and that used to be available through a link on the Which site. Last time I looked the company charged £50 to work this out for you - it might be worth a trawl through that site or contacting Which for the contact details.

dunstonh · 21 March 2009 at 10:55AM

My question is, is it the norm to accept a first offer under such circumstances?

There isnt usually any way to negotiate as the calculation method is defined. If the figures are correct and have been inputted correctly then the outcome is cast in stone. You can ask for a recalculation but you run the risk of getting less when markets are going up (they are up a lot of the last few weeks).

I received a letter yesterday stating they are upholding my original complaint

IIRC, they were told to go back and review cases on the colonial side.

cash-magnet · 21 March 2009 at 3:26PM

Lender: Nationwide
Compensation: £3500 (15.9% of the capital £22000)
I just rang them up and asked about making a claim as the last forcast letter I had received showed a fantastic shortfall on such a small mortgage. I remember them being quite surprised I even had an endowment policy on such a small loan. Well it was you who suggested I transfer from a repayment to an interest only mortgage with this endowment policy and promised loads of extra money left over as it was such a small amount to be generated to pay off £22000. This may have clinched the very good offer I was paid. Is 15.9% of your mortgage an average settlement for most claimants to receive?

This lump sum payment was paid directly into the mortgage account and reduced the capital I owed to £18500. This was the kick-start I needed to start throwing money at this with over-payments, and 2 years after starting, my mortgage was gone. The endowment is still running and is in effect just a savings account worth around £16000, so I think I have done rather well and have no complaints.

mayb_2 · 22 March 2009 at 12:50PM

Well done you cash magnet. I only wish I had some money to throw at my mortgage!!

Report Endowment Misselling Compensation SUCCESSES

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