Report Endowment Misselling Compensation SUCCESSES

mayb_2

honellejai I am afraid to all intents and purposes this is the case. However, it is still possible for you to take your case to court as the Ombudsman's decision is not binding on you only on the company concerned if you agree to it. If your claim is for more than £5000 - it think that figure is correct - you can try a small claims court but othrwise it could cost you to do this. I am not sure whether it is possible to get the services of a no win no fee solicitor once the Ombudsman has ruled on this.

You can complain to the Service Review Team at the FOS address, but I quote from their reply to me (took nearly two months to receive a reply)

"It is not my role, nor that of my colleagues to consider or comment upon the merits of your complaint .... Our role is to deal with complaints about the manner in which a case had been handled."

So no joy for us there as we were complaining about both.

You can complain to: The Independent Assessor PO Box 35738 London E14 9YU. But his approach is much the same and they all came out with flying colours as you may expect. However, the FOS does not make you aware of a complaints proceedure and I do think they may get more complaints if people knew about it. You never know this might lead one day to a fairer service. Overall the next step may well by your MP as the Government oversee the FOS and the FSA.

MUSTBEFUNNY_2

Through the help of this wonderful site and Which? I managed to get compensation for an endowment taken out with FP in 1993. The difference between the endowment and repayment situation was just under £1000 which a firm of solicitors paid us (they sold us the endowment:rolleyes: ). I then cashed in the endowment and now have the satisfaction of knowing that we are where we should be and don't have that horrible sick feeling in my stomach when we got a BONUS(ha! lack of bonus more like) Statement. Thanks Martin.:money:

Mr_helpful

Must be funny
Im curious. If the mortgage was just under a £1000 off target at about half way through the mortgage term. Are you not worried that FP could very easily get this back on target and actually have given you a surplus especially as an endowment tends to grow faster in the latter years. Obviously I dont know if this will be the case but I am interested to see what your feelings would be if that was the case.

dunstonh

If the surrender penalty is more than £1000 then the endowment option has been the better option up to this point. FP are one of those providers that can have some cracking endowments (the unit linked versions) and have some pretty awful endowments (with profits mainly). In some cases you can switch between them so its not all bad if you actually do something about it.

MUSTBEFUNNY_2

Hi Mr Helpful

Nope. I don't have to feel sick when I read my "bonus" statement. I don't have to pray that FP will care whether my policy makes a good return or not. I'm not a gambler (I don't even play the lottery) and I believe getting rid of my endowment was a great thing. It all went to reduce my mortgage.

Sadly, I still have an NU policy (pre 1988). I don't even get an annual "bonus" statement any more. They've gone to bi-annual. Do I expect to get a big, fat bonus at the end? What do you think?:rolleyes: I just pray I get money back with something to cover the interest that we might have had. It pays out in 2012, I'll let you know.

mayb_2

MUSTBEFUNNY why are you not cashing in this other policy as well? It may be worth you making it paid up if it is not doing anything with your money. Every time you make a payment something is taken out to cover costs so if it is not adding anything to the final repayment...?

Have you asked them for a redemption figure now and a projection for the final payment? Not saying that is what you should do but curious to know why you are keeping it really.

Mr_helpful

Fair points I only asked because I think the authorities have handled things wrongly. I think it would have been better to have a we will make the compensation at the end type policy. Though I can see this would have added problems. But at present those who keep the policy might end up over compensated so there is probably no easy answer. I was just interested in views.

dunstonh

NU are not as bad as the projections make out. Firstly, their with profits fund is very strong. Not quite a Pru levels but not far off. So, using the 6% projection figure is a reasonable assumption to make.

Secondly, their projections do not include any terminal bonus that exists on the plan at this time. So, if there is a terminal bonus of £4000 for example on it, then the projection doesnt include that £4000. So you should add that on top to get a more realistic figure.

Thirdly, there is the endowment promise figure. Whilst some may argue with the term "promise" it does mean that your 2001 promise value still does exist and that figure should be added to the projection (the 2001 figure was reconfirmed in the 2004 bonus statement).

Lastly, there is the proposed dispersal of orphan assets. That will be paid as a special bonus into the plan. It may only be £500-£1000 but it all counts.

So, when you take all those things into account, you may find the endowment is not far off track or is even back on track. Its just the flawed projections that show it isnt.

MUSTBEFUNNY_2

Hi

In all honesty I did look into getting rid of it and then I found it had value on the open market. My logic was that if the money men were prepared to buy it then I was keeping it:laugh: It's so near the end now (just 5 years) it seemed worth hanging on....

mayb_2

good luck with that then.