Endowment Mis-selling - Don't give up!

dunstonh

vanessaw wrote:

Has anyone who has claimed/received compensation for mis sale of endowment policies used any of these firms that advertise? eg. claim2gain, bruno franklin etc.. I've been approached by a couple, one over email and one by telephone and am unsure whether to proceed. Any advice would be welcome as I feel I have a case .... many thanks

This is asked about 2-3 times a week and rather than repeat (again), look back a page or two on this thread or one of other many threads on this subject.

A quick summary for you though - don't use them.

defender_of_the_weak

Isn't that a bit like saying don't use IFAs because they give no value for the fees/commission they charge, all they do is direct you to the company with the broker consultant they like or the one that pays most commission.

dunstonh

defender_of_the_weak wrote:

Isn't that a bit like saying don't use IFAs because they give no value for the fees/commission they charge, all they do is direct you to the company with the broker consultant they like or the one that pays most commission.

That is not the case though.

None of the research software includes commission as an influencing matter and without an IFA the average person would end up with crappy bank products.

An IFA would research the best product to match the goal and then potentially has a lifetime liability to support that advice. So you are paying for consumer protection, time and expertise.

An endowment claims company has no consumer protection, writes a letter which is mostly computerised and contains much the same information for every same case they do, whether it is applicable or not and spends a couple of minutes on each case. Then expects to take a wedge of money for doing that.

As i have mentioned before, if it was a £100 fee for the letter writing, then that would be acceptable for the time spent.

anglepoise

Can anyone comment on whether I'm undertanding this correctly.
The formula used seems to be the difference between where you have been with a repayment mortgage and what the policy is currently worth.

That's all fine, but what about the period between getting compensation and the end of the policy.

It seems to me that the current approach gets the company off the hook, and you are in effect only part compensated.

This would imply that the longer you leave your complaint, the better (deadlines for claims obviously limit this option)

Am I missing something, and is there anything you can do about this?

defender_of_the_weak

So when I complain to a major IFA about the fact that one one their advisers took a clients inheritance and stripped the money out off a bond each year to support a serries of endowments and regular premium pension that turned 40,000 into just over 16,000 with an 8,000 pension fund she can't touch then obviously we write a standard letter.

If you want to complain about 'ambulance chasers' then please do so more specifically rather than merely lumping them all in together. My point in the last posting was to highlight the the differences in how some companies deal with complaints. Some IFAs are excellent and the spectrum rums all the way to some IFA's are crooks. Some complaint companies genuinely try to provide a reasonabl;e service at a fair price and some cherry pick the cases they know they can win and charges 3/4 times what the service is worth.

Comments on a postcard please

EdInvestor

anglepoise wrote:

Can anyone comment on whether I'm undertanding this correctly.The formula used seems to be the difference between where you have been with a repayment mortgage and what the policy is currently worth.

The compensation is based on the position you would have been in now if you had taken out a repayment mortgage,which would have been designed to pay off your house at the end of the term.

The idea is that when you receive the money, you surrender the endowment policy and either take out a new smaller repayment mortgage, consisting of the original loan minus the surrender value of the endowment and the compo money, or just overpay your existing loan with the lump sums if this is more sensible.

You also increase the monthly mortgage payment by the amount of the current endowment premiums.

If you do this, your loan should be paid off at the end of the term.

jlm_3

We are in the unfortunate position of having been missold a mortgage in April 1988 (facing a shortfall of over £9,000) and so from what I gather we are not covered by the Ombudsman.

To make things even worse the endowment is a Standard Life policy sold to us by an advisor employed by the firm of solicitors who undertook the conveyancy of our property. Although the firm of solicitors still practise, they no longer provide financial advice / sell mortgages (so they FSA say they are unable to help? ). We registered our complaint to both Standard Life and the solicitors in question but have been told that due to the date in which we took out the endowment we would be unable to claim.

We seem to have hit a complete dead end with our complaint and according to the WHICH website there appears to be no hope for compensation. Does anyone know if there is anything else we can do or is it just a case of tough luck?????????????

defender_of_the_weak

Charm and wit all in one posting but no response to the question of how the IFA turned the client money from 40K to 16 whilst creaming off fat commissions from regular premium policies that were unnecessary.

Sofa_Sogood

jlm wrote:

We are in the unfortunate position of having been missold a mortgage in April 1988 (facing a shortfall of over £9,000) and so from what I gather we are not covered by the Ombudsman.

jlm? Sorry to snip your quote, but I'm sure I've read about this problem before, (and we're having the same problems with Standard Life etc etc), but check on what scottishlizzie has had to say. I'm not sure, but I think people with pre 1988 endowments aren't being overlooked, but double check that?)

Do a search on scottishlizzie's name.

Good luck by the way.

dunstonh

I'm not sure, but I think people with pre 1988 endowments aren't being overlooked, but double check that?)

It depends on how it was purchased. If it was from an insurance company rep then the insurance company may deal with it.