Winterthur Endowment Miss-selling

ant99_2

Has anyone got comp from WINTERTHUR ??

I have £20k endowment from June 91
£10k endowment from Aug 93
£17.5k endowment from Feb 98

All are with-profits but Winterthur are forcasting a combined maturity of £28k

I had expressed a very cautious attitude to risk and repeatedly stated that I wished the payout to be guaranteed at £47.5 which I was assured it would.
Winterthur have just found there was no miss-selling. What ? Exposing me to a (potential) 40% loss when, what I was expecting (and required), was a guaranteed loan pay-off sum was not miss-selling on their behalf !

Does anyone have any advice on how to approach the Ombudsman claim form.

Thanks

Ant

dunstonh

In the response to the complaint, Winterthur would have given you details on how to take it to the ombudsman if you wish.

You have to be careful here as if you go complaining to the ombudsman about the performance of the endowments, he/she will reject the complaint as performance is not an issue that can be complained about.

ant99_2

I have gathered that highlighting my attitude to risk would be more helpful. It was Winterthur's final response that stated "my risk attitude was cautious". I am hoping that helps.

dunstonh

With Profits funds are not cautious. They are medium/balanced risk. That would indicate they have sold a fund above your risk rating.

Just reading their PPFM and there is nothing to help you there. However, two things in it that were useful. One, that they say they will not change the bonus rate any more than 10% of the previous bonus rate declared. ie. if bonus rate is 3%, then the next year cannot go down by more than 0.3% or up by 0.3%. That really hampers the potential for growth in the coming years. The other thing is that they have indicated that most plans can switch to unit linked funds. These will offer greater potential for growth and should be investigated if you intend to keep the endowment.

ant99_2

They stopped adding bonuses on all 3 plans in 2002. No bonuses added since. Isn't that a 100% fall on the previous year ?

Your names appears in lots of threads .... thanks for the explanations/help etc.

dunstonh

ant99 wrote:

They stopped adding bonuses on all 3 plans in 2002. No bonuses added since. Isn't that a 100% fall on the previous year ?

Your names appears in lots of threads .... thanks for the explanations/help etc.

The PPFMs are a more recent requirement, since 2002. With zero bonus the prospect is extremely bleak.

EdInvestor

Post some figs if you want a view on what to do with them.

Guaranteed sum assured
Declared bonuses
Surrender value
Monthly premium
Maturity date

ant99_2

I'll gather the details this evening

Phantom_Flan_Flinger

Winterthur just sent through their renumeration offer last week after upholding my complaint on a £62,000 endowment from Sep '94.

Not much help to you, but they are giving out compensation.

ant99_2

Horay to that.

Anyway, here is the deal EdInvestor, in order asked for ...

£20K WP policy :£7260, £1843(frozen at May 02), ?, £25.80/month, May 2016
£10K WP policy :£3280, £546(frozen at May 02), ?, £15.49/month, May 2018
£17.5K WP policy :£17.5K, £3186, ?, £43.79/month, May 2018

The £17.5K policy says it is with profits but doesn't appear to have a bonus statement, only a "value of units in fund" current total of £3186. The GSA is quoted as £17.5K. In fact, it is quoting the fund as "With Profit B". I fear this isn;t the same as the other 2 policies ???

Thanks again

dunstonh

Its probably a unitised with profits plan then rather than a conventional with profits. Thats actually quite good news as it probably means that fund switching is an option for you. They do have quite a good range of unit linked funds and that is an option to review ASAP.