Act now on mis-sold endowments: new article

dunstonh

not only did they not know where we lived for 13 years

Which they would have done had you told them.

,i have been informed by abbey(which is where the policy originated)that we can expect compensation for each day they mess around from when the policy ended but by then it may have to be paid to my descendants

Compensation is not awarded in financial services. Redress for being out of pocket is. What should be happening is the maturity value should be earning interest until it is paid out. Not compensation. If it drags on too long and is the insurer's fault then you could expect a small goodwill gesture. If it is not the insurer's fault (such as an assignment to a lender who is dragging their heels) then you may need to direct a complaint to that party.

mayb_2

Sounds like you had a really raw deal froggy1.

It is only redress if you are talking about an endowment mortgage. With any other endowment there is no redress as there is nothing to pin the amount promised as a return. You can say you didn't know what you were buying but it makes no difference - they can equally say they never made any promises for it unless they are confirmed in writing. With a mortgage it is known to be taken out to cover the mortgage itself - it is not possible to reclaim the extra sum many people were promised on their mortgage endowments either unless it is in writing too.

We had something similar with a pension/savings endowment with the CIS. They had not given us any information about the performance of our 15 year policy since the initial years - no annual report etc - and then tried to say it was now worth less than we had paid them. We had no idea that we would not get the return promised or anything was going wrong with this. We later found out the fund had been closed but we had not been informed of that - and the significance of it - at the time and given the option of doing something else with our money. Who would keep paying into something that was not going to give you your money back? So by not tellin us and presumably a lot of other people they were actually just taking money from us for no return.

We also had a pension for my husband with this company and they forgot/ommitted to put it on the computer system when they changed this over and didn't pay this out when it was due. When we asked them about it and they eventually put this in place, there was no compensation or back pay on it as they said we hadn't asked them to start paying this when my husband was 55 - as he was entitled to do. As it was a frozen pension we had forgotten about it maturing at 55 and so did nothing about it at the time. Again no annual updates or anything to tell us what was going on and it should not have been necessary for us to contact them in this way. How many other people did not get put on the computer system I wonder.

Hang in there and hopefully in the end you will at least get your money back but don't get your hopes up too high as our claim went through every process imaginable - that is all we got and we were never given an explanation as to why we got more than the claimed value at the time so assume this was compensation of a sort.

I hope your story has a happy ending.

HDRW

I was mis-sold an endowment policy in 1983, but Berry, Birch & Hawksford (later Berry Birch & Noble, who then went bust!).
Because it was before the laws were enacted (1988 I believe) and because the IFA has gone bust, it seems I will get nothing to compensate for the loss of 30% (£8000) which has happened.
They sold it as a "with profits" policy - no mention of losses! I understood that it covered the mortgage no matter what, but on seeing the documents now, it turns out the policy wouldn't even have covered it if I'd died, which was certainly not what I understood, or wanted, at the time!
So, what did they do with the extra money they must have made when interest was at 10 to 15%? I remember finding it difficult to pay the interest at the time, but thought that on the other side it meant that the endowment would be making more. Looks like the insurers kept the extra instead of putting it into the fund...
The policy has had no "bonuses" added for the past 3 years, and no terminal bonus, so for that time I've just been throwing money into a hole. Can I claim from the insurers, in that they did a particularly lousy job of looking after my money?

dunstonh

They sold it as a "with profits" policy - no mention of losses!

It would be very unsual for a 1983 policy to see you in a loss position. You would have benefited from LAPR (tax relief) and that would have made the endowment much cheaper than a repayment mortgage over the term.

on seeing the documents now, it turns out the policy wouldn't even have covered it if I'd died, which was certainly not what I understood, or wanted, at the time!

That is probably why its less than you expected.

Can I claim from the insurers, in that they did a particularly lousy job of looking after my money?

No.

JOHALANDMEG

4 weeks ago made a claim againt the Abbey for misold endowment. Purchased in 1989 against £30K with Standard Life. Was informed of a shortfall sometime ago and did nothing about it, thought to long ago etc. Anyway, thought nothing to lose, was told at the time it was the thing to do and would have a surplus. So printed forms off from this site, spent 3 horrible hours dredging through old dusty paperwork, filled in bits required and posted.

Had a letter through post today offering £3546!! Very nice too!! Best 3 hours work I will ever do. :T :money:

My advice is go for it, forms are clear and consice, does take a bit of time and brain drain but worth it. Have read some of the other comments from people saying its tough luck if you have a shortfall and will just drive mortgages etc higher. More fool them if they dont claim, maybe just a bit bitter because they can not, or have been refused!! :mad:

Cheers Martin........:beer:

mayb_2

Sorry to hear about your troubles with this HDRW - I personally am tired of the old chestnut that somehow I benefited so much from the tax position that the enormous shortfall on my mortgage was wiped out and I just didn't notice it at the time. I hope somebody knows of something you can do about this but if I were you I would write any letters to anybody I could in case something can be done about it - you have absolutely nothing to lose by trying.

Glad to hear your news Johalandmeg - and quite agree with you about it always being worth trying I have to say I personally feel you can't blame people for being bitter or angry at what these companies are getting away with by using the time bar in this way and being refused does not mean that you weren't missold or aren't in the poo because of it.

dunstonh

I hope somebody knows of something you can do about this

Yes we do know what can be done. Nothing.

if I were you I would write any letters to anybody I could in case something can be done about it - you have absolutely nothing to lose by trying.

You have nothing to lose apart from the waste of time and paper. There is no-one to complain to. BB&N did a dirty and shirked their financial liabilities onto the FSCS (which means they dumped their liabilities to be paid out of a pot funded by current advisers like me who have never mis-sold anything but have to pay for those that have). However, the FSCS only offered protection on cases post August 1988. Even if BB&N were still trading they would not consider the complaint as its pre 29th April 1988. 5 years before regulation began.

I personally am tired of the old chestnut that somehow I benefited so much from the tax position

The fact that the monthly payments were probably around 20% lower than a repayment mortgage due to LAPR were a key benefit. You cost that saving over 25 years and its usually worth a lot more than a small shortfall at the end. Especially as most of the gain was in the early years when the size of the mortgage was significantly more in real terms than it is now.

thebillet

I finally got round to doing something about my poorly performing endowment; I looked on here completed one of the template letters in what must have been just a few minutes and following a couple of letters, mainly to check my identity and signature I got £5.5K compensation and the chance to surrender. As the poster above said, best and most profitable bit of work I have done in a long time. MSE just gets better and better.

thebillet

Forgot to say it was with HSBC

mayb_2

As I said dunstonh an old chestnut - I had a low cost endowment that had no hope of paying off the mortgage even when it was sold to me - it was shortfalling by £25000 very early on and we did not save a penny as I recall we just avoided paying more on a higher rate of interest - even that benefit was lost when the company would not lower our mortgage rate when everyone else lowered theirs. Either way we were streatched to the hilt and it benefitted us nothing at all except a load of anxt and money issues that we are still dealing with.

I am aware that I am not the only one that feels this way and knows the position they are in better than anyone else. If that does nothing else it allows me to feel some sympathy for those like HDRE who are in an even worse position than I was. Nothing ventured nothing gained as JOHALANDMEG have just illustrated.