Endowment Mis-selling - Don't give up!

Furniture_man

Case at last put together and sent to the FSO!

Will see how long it takes them to respond, and will be interesting to view their comments on my rejection letter from Insurance Co.

Will wait (probably a long time) with baited breath.

culpepper

We reduced our mortgage payment several years ago about 1993 through an offer by our building society (we had been going to move the mortgage elsewhere but they said no,look you can do THIS) at the time we were thrilled to think it was that easy,we started an endowment to cover part of the mortgage which reduced our monthly payments. About 18 months ago the endowment company wrote to use pointing out the shortfall if the interest rates continued as they were.
We wrote to the company and after a long wait (about a year) they agreed that they had missold the motgage as they had not pointed out to us that the new endowment would not cover the motgage (they knew this already) the documents we have did not indicate this anywhere .We received the amount that we would have had extra ,had we carried on paying as a repayment up till now.
We have just surrendered our endowment to AAP (they buy endowments with less than 10 years to run I believe) and we're now going to pay the whole of the rest of the mortgage by repayment method.

If you are seeking compensation,be sure you can obtain copies of your mortgage agreement ,I think we even had to send copies of the land registry document to them with very little time in which to comply once they said we had a legitimate claim.

If you are surrendering your endowment,check the company is legit by searching for them on the FSA website.

The brokers check for Bankruptsy and need original ID such as birth certificates/driving licence .Seems a bit daunting when there are so many forms to fill in.

mpet

I'm sure many of you know this, but just a bit of a dampner - well it was for me any way.

The Independant Financial Adviser that sold us our endowment has ceased trading, so I submitted my claim for mis-selling to the FSA in November 2003. In December I received a letter saying it would take up to 6 months to deal. I called then in June and was told that it would be another 6 months due to the amount of claims they have. As of yet - 13months, I am still waiting for their decision.

Golden_Oldie

Hi all,

I have searched through pages of different complaints and have yet to find one similar to my circumstances.

I took out my endowment policy in Jan 1990 with Canada Life. I bought the house with a friend (also male) and we took out a joint mortgage. The representative from Canada Life recommended that we both took out individual endowments to cover the total value of the property with was £49,750, as in law we are deemed as two individuals.

The representative said that because endowments offered life insurance, neither one of us would suffer financially should the other one die. He also informed us that it was flexible to the extent that should either or both of us decide we/they wanted to sell up before the 25 year duration; the policy was transferable to another property or could be used as a savings policy and offer a nice little nest egg at the end of the term providing it wasn’t surrendered early. Based on the projected figure at 4% there will be a shortfall of approximately £34,500, so much for a nice little nest egg!

Looking back, it now appears to me that the representative very cleverly guided us into the endowment route. I cannot remember for the life of me whether he even mentioned the repayment route, but i’m almost 100% he didn’t primarily based on us being two individuals.

In hindsight, had I been informed of the risk I would have been taking I certainly wouldn’t have gone done the endowment route as i’m adverse to taking any financial risks, even to the extent that I don’t even play the National Lottery. How do I prove that the information we were given was shoddy and very devious ?

Your thoughts and suggestions would be gratefully appreciated on this matter.    

hotrod_3

At least you lot can complain to someone and have a chance of compensation.  In my early 20's I took out an endowment in 1985.  We had a mortgage for £17k and I have the original letter showing that the endowment mortgage repayments were more expensive than repayment - but we would have a £17k surplus with the endowment at the end of the mortgage.  Therefore we were told paying just £3.50 per month more would generate us a nice little nest egg if we went the endowment route.  Well now Standard life tell us we will have a £3k shortfall!

I tried the ombudsmen but because it's pre 1986 we can't complain.  Wrote to my MP who passed it on to some minister responsible for the fiasco - received a letter saying hard luck basically.

Can't have the company that sold it to me for bad advice as it was an Estate Agents (Parkhurst, Swansea) who no longer exist.  I can't find out whether the estate agents occupying the premises now (Peter Allan - part of principality bs I think) took over the business or just the premises.

Also have another endowment took out in 1995.  I was a bit nervous as heard some bad rumours but was told it was the right thing for us as we had 1 endowment already and that was guaranteed to pay off mortgage!

Now we have a potential £6k shortfall on a £35k mortgage.  To address this I have taken out an ISA.

I feel very aggrieved at the cut off point for the first mortgage especially when standard life send me warning letters with how to complain on!

24seven

A BIG thankyou to TrickyTrotter, MSE and other posters in this thread

If I had not seen this post I may not have started this claim.

I just got my letter back from the Halifax and they agree I was missold my Endowment, they now will work out how much (if any) compensation I'm due and (if any) will send me a cheque in due time.

;D ;D ;D

peterbaker

Yes the message is claim and dont give up for any reason.  Whether you were sold your policy in 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988 or whenever it doesn't matter to see justice done.

I claimed for four sold in 1980 1982 1985 and 1987 which were supposed to pay off £75,000 by 2012.  Actually the first three were ok but as the same company sold all four I gave them the benefit of all the policies together when they worked out the compensation.  I received around £10,000 in compensation eventually because I was a bloody nuiscance and I was LOUD!

Unlike many of those current industry members who are standing like Canute trying to hold back the floods of claimants, I was around in the 80s when the salesmen, their managers, and the local building society managers at that time thought "endowment business" was the Golden Goose to lay their local profits for almost no effort on their part.  A number of the more "successful" of them went on to become directors, and I have no doubt that some of those later directed that the endowment promises should be breached.

The FSA has issued renewed warnings this week to the endowment companies to deal properly with this fiasco.

If you had given up or havent claimed yet then get stuck in again.

Forget the distraction of those attempts by misguided industry members to rationalise what is a deserving claim and what is not deserving or what is somehow "time-barred".  If you have a shortfall you deserve the compensation - - - - - period.

Golden_Oldie

Hi all

Just found some useful information which may be of interest. FOS decision trees. Apologies if it's already been posted.

The redress referred to in the decision trees can be found here

Geruish

Hi folks,

Another sob story coming up.

We have four endowments:-

Friends Prov 1988 showing £7400 shortfall @ 4%
Std Life 1989 showing £6400 shortfall @4%
Norwich Union showing £3525 shortfall @4%
Friends Prov 1998 showing £15625 @ 4%.

Total target amount = £105,000
Projected at 4% = £72,050

Question: is it worth going through one of the compensation agencies to try and gain compensation? I know they'll charge 15% on a no-win no-fee basis but I'm not sure if I've got the time and energy to sort all four out myself.

Thankfully, we down-sized in 1999 and we only have a £90k mortgage. Even so, there will be shortfall of £17,950 unless returns increase.

dunstonh

Friends Prov 1988 showing £7400 shortfall @ 4%
Std Life 1989 showing £6400 shortfall @4%
Norwich Union showing £3525 shortfall @4%
Friends Prov 1998 showing £15625 @ 4%.

Total target amount = £105,000
Projected at 4% = £72,050

No surprise there is a shortfall when using the 4% figure. Most of these endowments would have been set up needing 6-7.5%pa growth. So any projection using 4% would under achieve.

Question: is it worth going through one of the compensation agencies to try and gain compensation? I know they'll charge 15% on a no-win no-fee basis but I'm not sure if I've got the time and energy to sort all four out myself.

These companies are ambulance chasers. They are non-regulated but try and make money from people giving the impression that they will do loads of work for you and all you do is give up 15% of your pay out. Absolute rubbish.

If you feel you have been missold and know there is evidence to back this up (or that there isnt evidence to support the insurer/advisor) then fill in the Which? template from their website.

You should also be aware that you don't get compensation with a successful endowment complaint. You get a correction made which puts you in the same position you would have been with a repayment mortgage. With older endowments, this can mean any payout is non existant or quite small as a period in the 80s and 90s, endowment mortgages were cheaper than repayment mortgages.

have you also considered altering your fund selection to match a more modern view on investing? ie diversification of the investment into fixed interest funds, property funds, european, US etc. Spreading the investment over the areas so it averages out to your risk profile is considered a much more sensible approach to investing nowadays. Especially if you consider that you probably wouldnt have a shortfall had that approach been used from the start of the endowments. You may not have the option to alter fund choice with all those providers and one or two may charge but it should be easy enough to find out.