NU Endowment payouts

pawpurrs

What happening with these, it seems to have all gone quiet, arent we supposed to have heard by now what the payments are going to be?

pwllbwdr

They've put it on hold - presumably having discovered that in the current climate it wasn't sufficiently unfavourable to policyholders. Are you aware of what NU are actually doing to you/me? See http://groups.google.com/group/norwich-union-policyholder-reattribution and make your own mind up.

pawpurrs

Thanks for the link..
Can you put it in easy to understand terms

dunstonh

pawpurrs wrote: »

What happening with these, it seems to have all gone quiet, arent we supposed to have heard by now what the payments are going to be?

You tend to hear about maturities about 3 months before. Legacy NU plans are suffering poor admin at the moment (I say at the moment, its near consistent with legacy plans).

pwllbwdr

pawpurrs wrote: »

Thanks for the link..
Can you put it in easy to understand terms

Difficult to do so - endowments are complex beasts. I'll have a go.

The inherited estate is a large pot of money within the fund. NU have said that it is a historic surplus and (largely) not from the contributions of current policyholders. The reattribution is a process by which they get the inherited estate for their own use and in return give policyholders an "incentive".

There is a rule which states that payouts from a surplus which is not needed for the fund should be made 90:10 (90 policyholders and 10 to NU). That is what is being done for the "special bonus". However, for the reattribution part NU/Aviva want to have it much lower for the policyholders. What that ratio is likely to be is clouded in confusion at the moment.

There is data (see the google group) which shows that in recent years, when your and my endowments have been performing dismally even in good years, the inherited estate has grown massively. Draw your own conclusions.

pawpurrs

Thanks for that, so in which case what is the best course of action?
I have to say we are dumbfounded by the return on our investment, we were talked in to taking this policy as at the time I worked for GA, when we really wanted a repayment mortgage.

pwllbwdr

Well, if you think the reattribution offer (when or if it finally arrives) is OK, go for it. It is unclear what will happen to those who decline - strictly speaking they should be entitled to future distributions from the portion of the IE in proportion to their policies. Whether their will ever be any such distributions (which must be 90:10) is a moot point.

NU are currently using the IE to fund misselling claims and various other items.