miss sold endowment REFUSED by Ombudsman

niallbiff

We made a complaint to the Financial Ombudsman 2 years ago or so to have it refused because we switched our endowment mortgage to a repayment mortgage with another company, before we complained about our endowment. my sister had the same endowment for the same length of time, however as she was still on the same mortgage they compensated her. do i have a case to be reviewed?

dunstonh

do i have a case to be reviewed?

No. Just because your sister had the same endowment and got redress doesnt mean you are entitled to it. It could be that they could find your file but couldnt find hers. Or a different adviser did the transaction and documented it correctly on yours but didnt on hers. Most redress payments are paid out not because they are mis-sold but because evidence is missing or the documentation is not strong enough to support the recommendation.

You could have identical endowments sold the same day by two different individuals to people in identical circumstances and one could be documented correctly and the other not.

EdInvestor

niallbiff wrote: »

We made a complaint to the Financial Ombudsman 2 years ago or so to have it refused because we switched our endowment mortgage to a repayment mortgage with another company, before we complained about our endowment.

This wouldn't normally be a reason for refusing to look at a complaint.I would query the ruling.

turbobob

It wouldn't be a reason. At least, its nothing like any reason I've ever heard of.

Reading between the lines.... Are you saying your complaint was upheld, but the calculation resulted in no financial loss (therefore no compensation) because you changed to a repayment mortgage?

dunstonh

ahhh. that could be it turbobob. A repayment mortgage in the early years would clear very little capital and the endowment would be building up potentially quicker. As the switch was made to repayment early on then at that point there could have been no financial loss. That would be logical.

Lets hope the OP updates the thread.

turbobob

Sometimes conversion can work to increase the loss, sometimes it will do the opposite. FOS's preferred method of calculation involves using a historic surrender value (either at the date of conversion or 6 months afterwards).

If the backdated surrender value used in the calc is at a particularly low point, and the policy has subsequently recovered then this can increase the loss compared with a standard calculation. But the opposite is also true.

I was seeing a lot of this type of thing last year as surrender values were at a high and there were lots of no loss cases. Third party firms would often then try to find a way to get a re-calculation using a backdated surrender value..

niallbiff

thanks i think turbobob could well be right