Endowment Mis-selling - Don't give up!

sondheimsoc

Thank you for replying. The second one was taken out in October 1988.
Lynne

dunstonh

October 88 is after regulation and after the introduction of the ombudsman. If you are not satisfied with the response, you can take this one to the ombudsman. However time barring does exist and if the letters sent are strong enough, the ombudsman will support the adviser. If you complaint is more to do with investment performance (as perhaps suggested although it could be wording in your post), then the ombudsman would reject that. If its about you being above your risk profile then that is a fair enough thing to complain about.

The age 60 retirement thing isnt automatic. If affordability is confirmed post retirement, then it can go past retirement age. If you say you are retiring before state retirement age, I would expect the advising company to ask for verification that your pension plans are set up to age 60 as well. This happened to a forum poster a couple of weeks back.

Final note is that if the policy was on track at 7.5% at point of surrender then its quite possible that no redress would be payable even if complaint was upheld. That would put the endowment around where it needed to be and if you take into account MIRAS in the early years and the periods of high interest rates which would have made an endowment mortgage cheaper than a repayment mortgage, that could wipe out any redress due. Of course, we cant do the figures here but you need to consider if you are going through all this hassle at the expense of your friendship only to end up with little or nothing.

Many endowment complaints upheld are resulting in little or no redress. The stockmarket recovery has seen to that. It depends on the quality of the endowment and the way yours appeared to have swung with the markets with both decline and recovery would suggest it was one of the better ones (big assumption to make without facts but it is something to consider).

sondheimsoc

Thanks again for that. I think you have made up my mind that it isn't worth pursuing. I am just glad that I have been able to pay lumps off the mortgage so there is only a comparatively small amount left to re-pay (£10,000 but we now don't have any insurance against that).
Thank you.
Lynne

defender_of_the_weak

Many endowment complaints upheld are resulting in little or no loss

NOT TRUE

90% plus of all complaints result in an offer of redress,

For all complaints upheld the adviser should agree to pay any fees involved with changing to repayment if the policyholder wishes to surrender their plan. although only the large institutions do this as a matter of course.

Some companies may also pay if you seek advice from an IFA this can amount to a further £300

93 % of the 90% above generate an offer in excess of £500 with a current average £3,500 some of our case runs into the tens of thousands of pounds, obviously very few, but you cannot generalise that because the stockmarket is getting better then redress payments will automatically fall

Furniture_man

I have followed my complaint to the system laid out, and eventually the FSA turned down my request that it was not mis-sold.
Is this the end of the line, or is there anything else I can do????????

dunstonh

Furniture_man wrote:

I have followed my complaint to the system laid out, and eventually the FSA turned down my request that it was not mis-sold.
Is this the end of the line, or is there anything else I can do????????

One assumes you mean FOS as the FSA dont look at individual complaints.

Unless you fancy court action, then you are out of options.

26ltg

I work for an independent insurance broker and through him took out an endowment mortgage on 1/7/1988 with Standard Life. The usual happened - was promised a huge payment at end of term, couldn't lose. Being financially naive had no idea endowments were linked to stock market and thought the minimum payment would be the mortgage paid off - how wrong can you get. We are now in a position of facing at worst £12k shortfall or at least £6k. As my financial advisor is my boss (who now no longer gives financial advice) its a tricky situation. I directed my first complaint direct to Standard Life who batted it immediately back stating they did not sell not the product so very carefully I mentioned it to my boss who told me to write to the FOS. Their reply came back "I am sorry to disappoint you but your complaint does not appear to be one we would deal with because the firm you are complaining about is no longer trading. For the FOS to consider the complaint, the firm must have assets available to make good any financial loss should the complaint be upheld in the customers favour". Hello, I still work here doing commercial and general insurance business. Any ideas anyone on how I should pursue this - I do want to keep my job by the way.

dunstonh

26ltg wrote:

I work for an independent insurance broker and through him took out an endowment mortgage on 1/7/1988 with Standard Life. The usual happened - was promised a huge payment at end of term, couldn't lose. Being financially naive had no idea endowments were linked to stock market and thought the minimum payment would be the mortgage paid off - how wrong can you get. We are now in a position of facing at worst £12k shortfall or at least £6k. As my financial advisor is my boss (who now no longer gives financial advice) its a tricky situation. I directed my first complaint direct to Standard Life who batted it immediately back stating they did not sell not the product so very carefully I mentioned it to my boss who told me to write to the FOS. Their reply came back "I am sorry to disappoint you but your complaint does not appear to be one we would deal with because the firm you are complaining about is no longer trading. For the FOS to consider the complaint, the firm must have assets available to make good any financial loss should the complaint be upheld in the customers favour". Hello, I still work here doing commercial and general insurance business. Any ideas anyone on how I should pursue this - I do want to keep my job by the way.

You have no consumer action and have hit the end of the road.

The FOS were never going to deal with the complaint and your boss was incorrect in telling you to go there. Standard Life have no responsibility for any advice you were given. So, you shouldnt complain there either.

This next bit is the important bit. If the firm is still trading under exactly the same name as it was when it gave out financial advice, then your boss still has a responsbility to review complaints. If he was a sole trader/partnership, he has responsbility to review complaints. If he was a limited company and that ceased and he restarted under a new name then he doesnt.

The FSCS (who deal with complaints for firms no longer trading) will only consider business conducted after 28th August 1988. So you cannot use them either.

26ltg

Thanks for your comments. We became a limited company about 5-6 years ago so there's the slight name change. I suppose I will have to accept the end of the road. However in 7 years time when I know the exact shortfall I am going to suggest to him tongue in cheek to go halves!

As the saying goes up here "shy bairn gets nowt".

kaznelson

Well Martins Nagging has finally paid off and I have been reading the boards about mis-selling Endowments. But would really appreciate some help

We took our Endowment in 1994 when I was 20 and my future hub was 23. We used an Broker who sold us a Friends Provident Policy and he didnt tell us the risks involved.

If we want to claim do we try & contact the Broker or FP? (What if we have no records?)We have also taken out an additional repayment mortgage on top of the endowment. Does this make it look like we arent concerned about the shortfall?

I've tried the link that Martin gives to Which but it seems broken?

THanks