Endowment Mis-selling - Don't give up!

dunstonh

the_doctor wrote:

Thanks Dunstonh,

Just wanting an unbias view which you have given, and am grateful

It is difficult to know when to give up when potentially loosing money after being advised.

The Doctor

If may not be all bad. Many NU endowments have improved a lot this year and they have one of the strongest with profits funds out there so it could come right for you. You could check to see if you have the option to invest in other NU funds. In which case, utilising some of the other funds in their range could be a good option. I certainly would recommend you investigate the options (although I cannot recommend which funds you would use on the open forum).

stuartmunn

Hi

Hope someone can ive me some advice. I just went through the steps about complaining about my FP endowment being missold to me.

I have had a letter from them saying that as I had not complained within 12 months of a letter they sent me on 1st of October warning me that my policy was under performing. I therefore had no righ to compensation.

I am guessing this is not a valid reason from FP and is just an attempt to fob me off...

Anyone got any similar experience?

Regards

Stuart

dunstonh

stuartmunn wrote:

Hi

Hope someone can ive me some advice. I just went through the steps about complaining about my FP endowment being missold to me.

I have had a letter from them saying that as I had not complained within 12 months of a letter they sent me on 1st of October warning me that my policy was under performing. I therefore had no righ to compensation.

I am guessing this is not a valid reason from FP and is just an attempt to fob me off...

Anyone got any similar experience?

Regards

Stuart

Its called time barring and it is valid. Only if the dates are wrong can you get round it.

Garry_Anderson

dunstonh wrote:

Its called time barring and it is valid. Only if the dates are wrong can you get round it.

Err..

Nobody challenged me in a previous thread when I wrote: "Why time bar is bull":

Any statute on limitations would start from when the "wrong" has stopped - true or false?

e.g. The police can't say to shopkeeper (victim of protection racket), "Sorry sir - even though you are still paying, you signed the agreement with them ten years ago - so you cannot bring charges against them".

AND this from the actual LAW:

Relevant to this is the Limitation Act 1980 - Section 32 - Postponement of limitation period in case of fraud, concealment or mistake

(1) Subject to subsections (3) and (4A) below [relates to innocent third party], where in the case of any action for which a period of limitation is prescribed by this Act,
either--
(a) the action is based upon the fraud of the defendant;
or
(b) any fact relevant to the plaintiff's right of action has been deliberately concealed from him by the defendant;
or
(c) the action is for relief from the consequences of a mistake;

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=12851

mintymoneysaver

I followed this thread, used the which letter, filled in a very easy 2 page form and 3 weeks later I have an offer of over £1500 from the Yorkshire!
It's definitely more than a year since I knew it was under performing but I had sold my endowment and told them I only recently realised I could claim if I had already sold it.
So Thankyou!

Rachel999

I have recently received a response from the Financial Ombudsman regarding my mis-selling complaint. They did not agree that I had been mis-sold the policy and I will receive no compensation. I have two questions:

I am not happy with the response from the Ombudsman, as I do not believe that my complaint has been thoroughly investigated. Do I have any options in taking it further?

Secondly, as current projections indicate that I will be between £18K and £24K short (on a £50K mortgage/endowment due to mature in 10 years), does anybody have suggestions as to how best I invest to manage the shortfall? I have done nothing so far, as I was overly confident that my complaint would be upheld!

marrbett

hi all-this is my first posting so here goes!!!

We bought our endowment policy in 1992,from sunlife of Canada to cover a £45,000 mortgage with the lump sum at the end!!
Our main gripe with it is that we feel that we should never have been sold it due to the financial situation we were in.
The rep who sold it to us was the rep that our company pension was with(my husband and I both worked in the same place.)He would have been aware that our jobs looked dodgy(we were working for a drug rehab,a charity and things were getting bad with funds.Our pay was being paid in dribs and drabs and eventually we were all made redundant.)
The mortgage was in my name and was an equity release type,paying normal repayment on 1/2 of £45000 and a fixed 4% on the remainder,with a view to buying the rest out over time.This was on a repayment basis as it was cheaper than anything else at the time.
We were persuaded to switch to endowment by the SunLife of Canada guy because it was wasting our money to keep with repayment because we would get this nice lump sum at the end!!We agreed to this despite the total cost of the mortgage increasing from what we had been paying.
A few months later we found the cost too high,things at work were erratic(paywise) and we contacted the rep to cancel the endowment as we couldn't afford it-he persuaded us to keep with it (otherwise we would lose our payments made sofar!)and that he would extend it by 5 years to bring the cost down by £30 a month.We discovered in the up-dated documents that he actually extended it by 7 years,not 5,taking us up to my husband's 65th birthday.
Our main beef (other than a large shortfall that we are facing!)is that he should not have advised us to take this on knowing how precarious our financial situation was.
Do we have a case here?
As an aside,my husband had just taken on an endowment mortgage a year previously(before we were married) but he had no more idea of it possibly not paying off the mortgage at the end than we did when we took out our joint one I am complaining about.We cashed that one in about a year later.Does this make our case worse?

cazmeg

Can you make a claim if you have cashed in your policy? I thought I saw an article saying this. Also if it was taken out in 1986 is it a valid claim? Thanks.

dunstonh

cazmeg wrote:

Can you make a claim if you have cashed in your policy? I thought I saw an article saying this. Also if it was taken out in 1986 is it a valid claim? Thanks.

If you have cashed it in you can make a complaint but any compensation would be calculated to the point you cashed it in.

If taken out in 1986, if bought through an independent, then you have no where to complain to. End of the road. However, if bought from a provider (i.e. a bank salesforce tied to standard life or a Friends Provident rep who called to your home), you can still complain as most providers have voluntarily agreed to review cases before 29th April 1988. However, you may also be blocked by time bar rules which some providers have introduced.

Diane_MacRae

Rachel999 wrote:

I am not happy with the response from the Ombudsman, as I do not believe that my complaint has been thoroughly investigated. Do I have any options in taking it further? !

Was it the actual Ombudsman who said no – or just the caseworker? In the first instance it is the caseworker who makes a judgment on your complaint and gives you a decision. If you don’t agree, you can then request that the ‘real’ Ombudsman looks at your case again (which also takes ages). Apologies if you’ve already done this, but some people may not realise there is another step. If it was the Ombudsman who ruled on your case then that is final, and I believe your only option is to take the firm to court – with all the extra risks and burden of proof that legal action implies.

Rachel999 wrote:

Secondly, as current projections indicate that I will be between £18K and £24K short (on a £50K mortgage/endowment due to mature in 10 years), does anybody have suggestions as to how best I invest to manage the shortfall? I have done nothing so far, as I was overly confident that my complaint would be upheld!

I’m no finance expert, but in my own case I’ve decided to do nothing for now. It really depends on your own circumstances (financial, dependents, future plans/prospects) but my verdict is ‘don’t throw good money after bad’. I see no point in busting a gut today for a potential problem that may or may not arise in the future, when I know I have enough equity in my home to cover it (as do most people who fell foul of these endowments in the 80s & 90s). Today the shortfall is only a 'virtual' problem – it only becomes a real problem when the mortgage has to be repaid – no extra money has to be found until then. In the meantime it is quite likely that the stock market will continue gradually to improve (as it has been doing), in which case the shortfalls may prove to be less than the endowment companies have been predicting.

Even without the prospect of improved investment performance, I know that it is likely that my own personal and financial circumstances will have changed sufficiently by then for me to have other means available to cover the shortfall eg older & hence better-performing endowments, or other investments/family windfalls. Most likely I will have moved anyway and reduced/paid off my mortgage from the equity in my home, in which case the endowments become simply investments – not particularly good ones maybe, but given their age, probably best kept until maturity nevertheless. I don’t think this approach is ‘sticking my head in the sand’ –right now I do have the means (via equity) to cover the shortfall, I just choose not to make the final decision about how to pay it until I actually have to – in about 10 years time. In the meantime I also choose to ignore the endowment companies’ attempts to scare me into shelling out on some form of additional saving, to cover a potential future debt that may not even exist by then.
If anyone disagrees with my assessment then I’d be really interested to know your thoughts.