Mis-sold Endowments-how unlucky is this?

daft_ada

Don't know if there is any help out there, but any advice that can given would be very gratefully received.
We took out an endowment policy on 25 March 1988(!), 6 days before FSA regulations apply. The policy was with Standard Life and was for £39000; it was a with profits policy. It was sold to us by our bank HSBC. At that time we were told it was almost certain to achieve the predicted £13000 profit at maturity in 2012.
The policy performed well and was due to achieve until 2001. At that point the 'with profits' element had almost disappeared but we accepted that inview of the economic climate. In October 2002 we received an 'amber' letter warning that the policy 'may' not meet the required amount; in February 2003 we received a 'red' letter telling us it would definately not meet the target. As the amount the policy would give us was dwindling rapidly, we decided to surrender it. Standard Life paid us about £13000, which we paid as a capital repayment off our mortgage.
So now we have lost out on 2 fronts: We can't claim misselling as we took out the policy 6 days before the deadline and now we have missed out on the demutualisation of Standard Life.
Is there anything we can do?

EdInvestor

...in February 2003 we received a 'red' letter telling us it would definately not meet the target...

I hate to tell you this but you probably could have claimed for misselling, as big banks like HSBC are mostly signed up to voluntary jurisdiction over pre 1988 cases.

But you would need to have started the complaint before February 2006, as there is a 3 years timebar. You are now out of time.

If it's any consolation, if you surrendered the policy 3 years ago, you will have got a lot more for it than you would get now, even including the DM windfall.:)

So I doubt that you have really lost out that much.

defender_of_the_weak

Not necessarily file the complaint anyway, HSBC may not time bar it

shazbat69

About 5 years ago I spent several months and a lot of paperwork trying to claim for a mis-sold endowment. I went through all of the banks and government agencies and filled in all of the official claim forms.

Eventually I recieved a reply saying that i was not allowed to claim, as I had taken my endowment out in January 1989 and they only covered endowments taken out before December 1988!!

I was actually given the misleading advice for the endowment in December 1988 but they wouldnt accept this.

I now notice on your forum, that there seems to be people claiming for mis-sold endowments that were taken out after January 1989.

Is there anything I can do?[EMAIL="Martin@moneysavingexpert.com"][/EMAIL]

dunstonh

Is there anything I can do?

Not bring up two and half year old threads to ask a question unrelated to the thread?

I have answered in one of your duplicate posts.