Endowment misselling - Scottish Am/Pru

malcolmK

Hi,

I was wondering if anyone else is in the same position as me...I have two Scottish Amicable endowment policies sold to me when I was an employee.

I've now gone back to them(or the Prudential as they now are) to see if I was mis-sold.

They've come back to me to say...amounst other things...that it was a condition of a staff mortgage that I took that I had to take their endowment policy as well. Looking at the FSA guidelines, one aspect in determining whether a mis-selling took place was on the assesment of my attitude to risk. I guess that in this situation there was none undertaken.

Has anyone come across this sort of thing before or have any views?

They also mention 'projection rates' used in the illustrations - but seem unable to say what they were - does anyone know what there would be (the illustrations were in '86 and '90 and, in particular if companies used different rates for different groups of people (I think Scottish Amicable had one rate for
IFA quotes and another for their Alliance & Leicester (sales)?

And finally, has anyone had any dealings with Prodental/Scottish Amicable...given their FSA record I find their level of service very poor (and letters full of factual errors?

Thanks

MalcolmK

dunstonh

Staff members have less protection when transacting business through their employer. Often these are classed as non-advised sales. Mainly as you get the product cheaper.

If you took a mortgage that insisted on endowment, then then it would be hard to be classed as a mis-sale. If the endowment was on advice basis, the need would be to protect an interest only mortgage that is already in existence or being arranged by the client directly without advice that requires an endowment policy. Anything other than an endowment would be a mis-sale at that time.

malcolmK

Hi,
Thanks for this....it does seem a bit off that its mortgage arrangement off as an intrinsic benefit of the job at one point in time and then come back later and say 'it was your own choice, so too bad'. It would seem to be mis-selling in the wider sense as all the standard advice items - attitude to risk and highlighting of strenghts & weaknesses of the different product types - was just not done.



MalcolmK

dunstonh

I believe that the idea is that you are getting it cheaper than the retail product as you are not getting advice.

Of course nowadays, they cannot insist on an endowment but that was just the way it was back then with some staff lending.

working_mum_3

malcolmK,
i am in the same situ re: pru staff. I got the same letter as you and agree that they still sold us a policy based on not assessing risk/ told us that we would have extra at the end of the policy etc.

Have you managed to make any progress ? It incences me that they can (so far) get away with this.

dunstonh

i am in the same situ re: pru staff. I got the same letter as you and agree that they still sold us a policy based on not assessing risk

When you buy the product and its not done through the advice product, there is no requirement for them to assess your risk. You are choosing to buy it and its your responsibility to get it right, not theirs. That is why you get it cheaper.

Complaining needs to be about advice. No advice was given. So nothing to complain about.