Act now on mis-sold endowments: new article

wilroda

Hi
I have just found this site and would appreciate your opinions on our endowment mortgage situation.

It was commenced in November 1987 and finishes in November 2012.
A "low start economy plan with Basic sum assured" with Sun Alliance which has since become part ot the Phoenix Resolution Group PLC.

We did try for compensation for this endowment but had no luck as it was taken out before regulation.

We pay £52 per month in the - now vain hope - of the policy meeting its £30000 target.

At present the figures are.

Basic sum assured - £9900
Total Bonus Earned-£5442.28
( bonus earned this year - £15.33!)

No mention of terminal bonus in policy

Adding these two figures together makes a measly £15342 at present.

There is no mention of a terminal bonus in our policy and Phoenix Resolution state:

When deciding the final bonus rates we compare the underlying values of typical maturing policies with the value if the guaranteed benefits. If the underlying value is more that the value of benefits we will add a bonus. But if not we willl not add a bonus.The amounts of final bonus will be affected by "smoothing".

What is your opinion on these Reslution Companies? I am of the opinion that they are doing as little as possible to help us and the policy is allowed to "limp along"

What would your advice be in our case?

We did contact them in February of this year with regards to the possible surrender of the policy and it was valued at that time at £11412.00 so we decided against surrender at that time.

Many thanks for your input

Head_above_water_2

Many thanks defender - as I assumed since no alternative policy company was mentioned.

Regards

advice_2

RobertE wrote:

PLEASE HELP I took out an endowment policy in 1983, I have complained about the mis-selling of this policy but without success. The original advisor is no longer in business, the FSA is not interested because it commenced in 1983. Do I have any other avenues open to me.

We are in a similar situation as we took out our endowment in 1987 and our complaint was not upheld by lloyd's bank. Just wondered if you have been successful or if anyone has any adivce?

defender_of_the_weak

If you were turned down by Lloyds TSB take it to FOS. Isn't it strange how so many people post on this site that they have been turned down for pre-88 sales by big banks and building societies and we rarely, if ever lose these cases, although sometimes we have to resort to FOS.

I think someone is being more than economical with the truth when dealing with the general public, any thoughts anybody?

Panther011

My provider has upheld my complaint and has offered me compensation that i am very diasppointed with.

I have been offered £900 compensation on an endowmnent of £30K.
The projected shortfall of my endowment is £8700.

Our children highlighted the the problems about our endowmemt last year and told us to make a complaint as they believed from talking to us, that we had been mis-sold our policy.
They also offered to lend us some money to pay off a lump sum of the mortgage as they could see it was causing distress to us.

So we paid off a lump at the same time as seeking compensation.

It appears that because we made this recent lumpsum payment, the provider gets to use this in there calculation of compensation.
We all thought that we were acting responsibly but in hinsight this may have been a silly thing to do.

As, If we had not have made this payment our compenstion would have been signicantly higher !

I have been told by the ombudsman that this is within the regulations set down by the FSA.

This is surely not FAIR ! had we increased our mortgage by the same amount. I am sure that would not have been taken into consideration.

After all, we were seeking compensation from the mis-selling of the endowment. We did not expect the compensation to cover all the projected shortfall but it feels we are getting a raw deal from all sides.

FIRSTLY - If there is anyone out there that is in a similar position, and is thinking of making a lumpsum payment off there mortgage whilst waiting for a decision on compensation - Definately think twice or seek some advice !

SECONDLY - Is there anyone out there, who has experierenced the same problem and overcome it. OR anyone who can offer any advice ??

Any advice or help would be greatly appreciated.

Many thanks.

dunstonh

I have been offered £900 compensation on an endowmnent of £30K.
The projected shortfall of my endowment is £8700.

Redress is based on current position not a potential future position that may or may not happen. At this moment in time, you are £900 worse off and that is what you are entitled to.

This is surely not FAIR ! had we increased our mortgage by the same amount. I am sure that would not have been taken into consideration.

It is very fair. You chose to do it off your own back without advice. You therefore take responsibility for those actions and cannot blame anyone else. In the scheme of things it makes no difference to whether you had paid it off on a repayment mortgage as it works on the calculation against that as well. So you are getting what you are entitled to.

After all, we were seeking compensation from the mis-selling of the endowment. We did not expect the compensation to cover all the projected shortfall but it feels we are getting a raw deal from all sides.

You are not going to get compensation. You get redress for the amount you are out of pocket. That is currently £900. So, if you switch to repayment mortgage now and pay that £900 and surrender value into the mortgage, you would be at the point you would have been had you had a repayment mortgage.

FIRSTLY - If there is anyone out there that is in a similar position, and is thinking of making a lumpsum payment off there mortgage whilst waiting for a decision on compensation - Definately think twice or seek some advice !

Exactly. There are pros and cons of doing it whilst a complaint is in process. If markets drop, it can be beneficial, if they increase you could lose out.

SECONDLY - Is there anyone out there, who has experierenced the same problem and overcome it. OR anyone who can offer any advice ??

There is no problem to overcome. Just a misunderstanding on your part on how the redress is calculated. If you switch to repayment mortgage, pay the surrender value of the endowment plus the £900 into the mortgage then you will not lose a penny. Your monthly payment maybe a little higher but thats because endowment mortgages are often cheaper than repayment mortgages. However, that is a consequence of complaining.

Kiwi45

Hi

I wondered if anyone had had any luck claiming in a missold endowment from the mortgage broker John Charcol?

I have an endowment policy with Aviva (Norwich Union) but bought it through John Charcol. I contaced one of the Endowment Complaint Handling companies but they basically told me that the mortgage brokers have covered themselves well and there is not much point pursuing a claim.

Any advice as my future's not looking rosy!! Hope this makes sense and I haven't broken any rules - I'm a newbie forum user.

Thanks.

Kiwi45

dunstonh

I have an endowment policy with Aviva (Norwich Union) but bought it through John Charcol. I contaced one of the Endowment Complaint Handling companies but they basically told me that the mortgage brokers have covered themselves well and there is not much point pursuing a claim.

IFAs generally have higher standards than tied advisers and the success rates against IFAs is lower than tied agents. The FOS overturn far less IFA cases than they do tied advisers as well.

That said, a mis-sold endowment is a mis-sold endowment regardless of who did it. And cases from IFAs do get overturned by the FOS and redress paid. Just a lesser number. I would say that your claims company is just being lazy and cherry picking the easy stuff. Also, being a NU endowment, its likely to be of higher quality and have a higher surrender value (as its probably on track) meaning even if successful, the redress will be very low or non existent.

If you think you were mis-sold you can complain. You shouldnt let a cherry picking claims company put you off if you think you have a case.

defender_of_the_weak

Absolute rhubarb from your claims company. If they had ever bothered to take on a John Charcol case, instead of cherry picking the easy stuff as dunston said they would know that the quality of advice from John Charcol veers wildly from the sublime to the ridiculous.

Although it would be fair to say we win fewer cases against them as opposed to the bigger financial institutions, if you think you have a case send the complaint to John Charcol. Dependent when you bought the policy it may well end up with Bradford & Bingley as they bought Charcols (I think) some time ago.

sjcjd

Hello All,

Just a quick question; if I wanted to see if I could claim for two mis-sold endowments what information do I need to find please?

Briefly... felt even at the time forced into the first one by the nice lady at the Abbey National in 1990. The second one was strongly advised in 1995 when we moved building societies and remortgaged.

Last year I stopped paying them when I found out they are well away from the paying of the mortgage, (and the nice little holiday with nest egg we were told we should be expecting upon maturity).

Many thanks.

SJ