Act now on mis-sold endowments: new article

dunstonh

Can this possibly be true, The FOS has no jurisdiction over an organisation that traded under the FIMBRA banner and never took up FSA affiliation?

Correct.

The FOS indicated that my only recourse was to take a the case to the civil courts... a somewhat scary proposition. I guess the first question would be the level of compensation if successful.

It is scary. It can cost you a lot of money if you dont win. Plus the courts would consider documents that the FOS put no weight on. However, that is your only recourse now. Another consideration is that the legal entity of the firm that you want to take to court may no longer exist.

Has anyone had a similar experience? and any advice

Probably many but most, if not all give up at this stage.

DavidLaGuardia

dunstonh wrote:

The larger one has tax relief on the contributions. So, you have had over 20 years of premiums which are cheaper than what you would have paid on repayment mortgage. Tax relief was removed on new business not long after you took your first one out but those that already had tax relief, continued to get it.

Since the exact date of the endowment taken out in 1984 is not given, how do you know whether it had relief or not?

helmel_3

We were sold a Standard Life Endownment policy in 1989 by the financial services agency attached to the estate agency from whom we purchased our house. Since then the Financial agency has gone into liquidation and when we started to receive warnings of shortfalls from Standard Life we thought that we were not entitled to any compensation .We started making higher monthly payments and over the past few years have reduced the amount outstanding by a considerable sum,
but still not as much as standard lifes projected shortfall.

We have recently been informed that as we had been mis sold the endownment and the agency we dealt with were members of the FSA we could apply to the FSCS for compensation which we duly did.

We recently received their response ,stating that the compensation we were due was - Nothing . The reason given was that according to their calculations, if we had taken out a repayment mortgage we would at this time be in the same position and owe a similar amount.

We were under the impression that we were claiming compensation for the fact that we had been mis sold the policy .

When I rang the Fscs for an explanation I was told that they do the same calculation for all claims and compensation was based on financial loss, which they do not think that we have suffered, and that there was nothing they could do about it.

I asked if making extra payments had anything to do with the outcome and was told that the extra payments would also have been added into the calculations for a repayment mortgage and therefore would make no difference to the outcome.

Has anyone out there had a similar experience or can tell me if this is the 'end of the line' as far as compensation claims go?

madkingsoup

dunstonh wrote:

1 - check the FSA register to see if he is still trading. You can do an individual search on there.

2 - ask the insurance company for the name and address of who they are paying the renewal commission to. Unless you have signed it over to someone else, then he will still be getting it.

He's not registered any more.
Norwich Union told us that it is being paid to the company which bought his client base (but not his liabilities).
The FSCS said that we must locate the adviser himself.

So who do we go for? The company that bought his client base, or the man himself (as yet unlocated)?

dunstonh

So who do we go for? The company that bought his client base, or the man himself (as yet unlocated)?

That wont do you any good from a claim point of view. However, they may have a contact point for the original adviser.

We were under the impression that we were claiming compensation for the fact that we had been mis sold the policy .

That is incorrect. You are claiming a mis-sale, which if upheld, what result in redress which would pay out if you were financially worse off.

Has anyone out there had a similar experience or can tell me if this is the 'end of the line' as far as compensation claims go?

You are not financially worse off so you are not entitled to any redress. End of the road.

This is becoming more common now with a recovering stockmarket and of course not all endowments are bad. Good ones still give shortfall letters and result in surpluses. So, by itself, you cannot rely on the projection letters.

Jockanory

Can anyone help or offer advice as I am currently going through the process of a mis-selling complaint against Nationwide for their selling of a standard life policy,when I cashed in a previous policy(I was informed it wasn't performing and their product was better) but in their latest letter,they have traced the original policy to Cheltenham and GLoucester BS but still require further details,policy number etc to proceed with a 'full and fair' investigation.
I have cotacted the C&G but they have no records of any such policy,can anyone advise me,where I can go now or should I just wait to see what the Natiowide offer me??

dunstonh

Why dont you ask the life company for details?

sadie11

Just been informed we are unable to claim on our shortfall with Friends Provident as it is time barred.
We were sold the policy from an independent advisor who is no longer trading at the same address and he took quite a bit of tacing when we did eventually trace him he told us we had no chance of making a claim against him and to forget it. He works under an umberella of a larger company and I then contacted them, they have just informed us that we are unable to make a claim as we are time barred missed it by 20 days

Crazy_Saver

Originally posted by sadie11
they have just informed us that we are unable to make a claim as we are time barred missed it by 20 days

Hi sadie11

I really am no expert and the guys on these boards have really helped me a lot, but I wondered if you are 100% certain that your time bar is valid.

We are in the process of a claim at the moment and the company that our advisor works for tried to time bar us. Luckily we have kept all correspondence relating to our mortgage and our documentation showed that we still have 2 years left to claim. When I wrote to them quoting the exact date of our High Risk Red Alert letter, they apologised and lifted the time bar.

I am not saying that this is the case with you, but for the sake of 20 days surely it may be worth your while checking dates etc.

Hope this is of some help.

Crazy saver

mikeywills

I hope someone here can help, I am asking on behalf of my PIL, who are not particularily money savvy. They believe they were missold an endowment policy, on the following grounds.

They took out a policy with Lloyds bank when their financial advisors used to come out and visit you, that was 23 years ago, they were advised at the time that the £15K mortgage should be paid off and leave them with an additional £8K as a bonus. After a few years they had a revisit and evaluation by another advisor who said their policy was on par to break even, the reason for the visit was because my FIL being had been made redundant, and his payout was a figure capable of paying the mortgage off in full if they cashed in the endowment.
They were recommended not to do this and to keep the endowment going, the result was that when shortfall letters came through my PIL were unable to make additional payments to top up, scared that when it was due to finish there would not be enough there to pay the mortgage and at an age where they would be retired and not capable of making raising further income, they cashed in the endowment with Lloyds and changed it for a repayment mortgage of £7000, they now have two years left on this term.

My question really is there any course of redress that they were ill advised by Lloyds, first in taking out the endowment, but after the second visit that they did not recommend for them to pay it off.
My PIL are collecting all the necessary paperwork for me to be able to go through it with a fine toothcomb, but I thought I would ask a general question to you guys first?

many thanks in advance for any advise received.