Report Endowment Misselling Compensation SUCCESSES

dunstonh

And_B wrote: »

When we purchased the endowment policy it was via the estate agent...I can remember sitting in the side room at the estate agents whilst they sorted the paperwork out for us (including the mortgage). There was no discussion on the risk that it would not meet the target. I do not have any evidence other than this other than knowing that the 'seller' of the policy was not a financial advisor ~ would this help?

That is certainly wrong but near impossible to prove. You can imagine their response would be "no it wasnt" and then you end up deadlocked in that respect.

Also, the estate agent has the liability. Not the insurer. What year was this? A lot of endowment complaints from the late 80s to around the mid 90s succeeded not because they could prove mis-sale but the seller could not prove they were sold correctly. Often because documentation was destroyed when data protection act came in and no-one had ever needed old documents before. So, the paperwork was not well looked after. After around 1995, the documentation and compliance documents issued as well as general disclosure started to improve significantly. So, a late case would be expected to have a lot more to protect their back side than an early case.

Our compliance company gave us some figures a many years ago which said on 1000 endowment complaints, only 25 cases were typically upheld as mis-sales. However, another 225 received payouts because the paperwork was missing or incomplete. The other 750 were rejected as documentation was sufficient. That gives you a sort of indication of the "odds". That said, the compliance company deals with IFAs and typically estate agent advisers who do (and always have) had a poor reputation.

Langdale

I took Martin's advice in August and took a day off work to complain about 3 endowments I was mis-sold between 1988 and 1992. Total value £85k. I was fortunate in that in addition to the mis-selling the 2 companies involved had failed to keep me informed despite me letting them know my changes of address, hence me being able to proceed so late in the life of the policies.

Halifax paid £19k for 2 Norwich Union policies (which were actually sold to me by the Leeds BS). The total value of the two was £50k and they mature in 2013 and 2014 respectively

Barclays Life paid £7.5k for one policy with a value of £35k due to mature in 2017.

Halifax paid up very promptly. Barclays only appeared to take me seriously when I referred it to the Financial Ombudsman at which point they responded very quickly.

It is astonishing just how bad these investments were in that they put me on their calculations, some £26.5k out of pocket on the equivalent repayment mortgage out of a total borrowed of £85k

Well worth taking the day off!

Langdale

And_B wrote: »

Hi, I thought that we had missed the boat on claiming on our endowment ~ but have received a handout with latest endowment statement from company which says that we could still make a complain.
Has anyone had any joy on this?
Thanks

See my post a few below yours. Ours policies were approaching maturity and we were very successful. Useful if they have messed up on the paperwork trail somewhere so go through it with a fine toothcomb. Langdale

And_B

Dear Dunstonh ~ thank you for the information. Our policy was purchased over 20 years ago ~ I will look to progress this. As they say nothing ventured nothing gained...I will let you know how it goes!
Thanks also to Langdale, I will have a look back at your posts.
We have kept all our paperwork so just a case of rooting it out.
Thanks

stewaj4

My husband had an endowment policy going back a good few number of years(roughly 20 years) hd has no paperwork, no idea who it was with and who sold it to him. What are the chances of him being able to claim on mis selling? We have no idea where to start! Thanks Jo

magpiecottage

stewaj4 wrote: »

My husband had an endowment policy going back a good few number of years(roughly 20 years) hd has no paperwork, no idea who it was with and who sold it to him. What are the chances of him being able to claim on mis selling? We have no idea where to start! Thanks Jo

Three questions

1. Why do you think it was missold?
2. How do you think you are going to complain to a firm you do not know the name of about a policy from a company know the name of?
3. Do you not think that you seem to have posted 2½ days too late?

dunstonh

stewaj4 wrote: »

My husband had an endowment policy going back a good few number of years(roughly 20 years) hd has no paperwork, no idea who it was with and who sold it to him. What are the chances of him being able to claim on mis selling? We have no idea where to start! Thanks Jo

If he has no idea who sold it to him then how can he complain it was mis-sold?

Over 3/4 of endowments are now timebarred from complaint. Is his?

If you want us to comment on chances of success, we will need to know what his complaint is.

Infor1penny

Wondering if anyone can help. We purchased our first mortgage in 1994 with an endowment policy with Irish Life. This continued until out of the blue in 1996 the financial advisor turned up at our house informing us that Irish Life were no longer trading in England and we had to move products. We, without question (young and not financially intellingent) changed to his one and only recommendation of standard life. We have just recently discovered that Irish Life transferred all english policies to Countrywide and that it wasnt necessary for us to move products as he stated. We did not pay any more money into the original endowment policy and countrywide are looking into what ever happened to that policy.(We didnt receive any further correspondence from either Irish life or Countrywide) We have also contacted standard life who have asked us to put a complaint in writing and they will ascertain wether the financial advisor was affiliated to them or not, think he has no longer trading. Does this sound dodgy? Any help or advice would be much appreciated. Thanks

dunstonh

We have also contacted standard life who have asked us to put a complaint in writing and they will ascertain wether the financial advisor was affiliated to them or not, think he has no longer trading. Does this sound dodgy?

Maybe. Maybe not. When a provider closes for new business it is not uncommon for the investments to go off the boil and suffer. So, there can be justification for moving it to an open provider to benefit from more active investments. I frequently cancel old contracts that are past it as do most IFAs. Justification is often easy and it would be a complaint if you didnt do it. However, this is the 2000s. Not the mid 90s and things are different today. Back then it was more common for sales reps to churn policies without justification.

So, it is impossible to say in your case. As it happens, moving to Std instead of ending up with Countrywide could well have been a good move. Even if there wasnt the justification at the time (i.e. did wrong but got lucky). You also got your standard life shares as well.

Infor1penny

Thanks dunstonh, I am not aware as to how well Standard Life did compared to Countrywide, would the increase in benefit have covered the 2 years payments we made to Irish life? Also is it not the case that how well the different policies eventually did is really irrelevent if we believe that it was mis sold in the first place. I should have said in my earlier post that he told us that Irish life's uk business was going bust and thats why they were no longer trading here. Was that information correct? Also he did not at any time tell us the policy was to be transferred to Countrywide and only recommended Standard Life. Thanks for the reply you obviously know what you are talking about, whereas I couldn't even spell intelligent right (see above)