Aviva - Endowment Shortfall

mr_gilmore

Hi there - I'm after some advice if anyone could help. Our endowment mortgage we took out in 1998 has gone from green to amber to red in the space of 2 years with a projected £25,500 shortfall which is massively depressing. We took it out with CGU Life which has now been taken over by Aviva.

If I want to put in a complaint would it be to Aviva?

Thank you

opinions4u

Yes (edit, or more correctly, the firm that sold you the policy).

But you can't complain about investment performance. Only the reasons for sale being inappropriate.

Does the policy have any form of guarantee linked to the mortgage?

[Deleted User]

mr_gilmore wrote: »

Hi there - I'm after some advice if anyone could help. Our endowment mortgage we took out in 1998 has gone from green to amber to red in the space of 2 years with a projected £25,500 shortfall which is massively depressing. We took it out with CGU Life which has now been taken over by Aviva.

If I want to put in a complaint would it be to Aviva?

Thank you

Hi Mr Gilmore

I'm sorry to see your post and would like to look into this for you. If you can email me at social@aviva.co.uk with your

Full name
Date of birth
Postcode
Policy number
MSE Username (so I can link your email to this post)

I will ask our endowment team to investigate and get in touch to discuss you options.

Kind regards

Dave


Dave Hyam
Aviva Social Media Team

mr_gilmore

Thanks both. Dave i've just emailed you.
Cheers

McKneff

mr_gilmore wrote: »

Thanks both. Dave i've just emailed you.
Cheers

#




Please be careful, on here, anyone can say they are anyone....

holly_hobby

The complaint would be to whom ever sold you the policy (which may not be Aviva if it was sold by an IFA and not an appointed/company representative or indeed it was an execution only sale) - but Aviva will guide you on this from your policy and point of sale docs.

Any investigsation would be based on suitability only (ie risks were not explained, unsuitable to ATR/financial experience and requirements, etc), as you can not be compensated for loss of expectation (ie poor performance in respect of estimate growth).

Whilst any effective compensation upon an upheld complaint, is the monetary difference (whilst the LCE was being used to support a mortgage), between the financial position between a repayment mortgage (inc life cover if necessary), and your endowment mortgage (including SV ) & 8% compound interest todate, if your policy ceased being used in connection with you mge at some point prior to the complaint submission.

If you need any more guidance pop back.

Hope this helps

Holly x

mr_gilmore

Thanks everybody, will keep you posted

magpiecottage

By 1998 there was a very clear Key Features document, illustration and "Reason Why" letter.

It makes it very uncommon for complaints about low cost endowments sold at that time to be upheld.

holly_hobby

And for a balanced investigation, we're looking for the reviewer to correctly determine the clients ATR at POS (ie not solely relying upon what the adviser noted they were. Which may have been incorrectly assessed/noted, to make the sale fit, as I've seen in many cases, esp where the client is noted as a balanced investor/s (yet had no prev exposure) for example to justify the sale of a UL LCE.

Together, if there is no or POS docs, what is reasonable to assume was discussed too (inc if the client was an inexperienced/vunerable/novice investor and the adviser effectively overruled the POS risk warnings (which was common place), esp if there is a pattern of this in prev sales by the same individual).

Anyhoo, it of course depends how robust the POS docs and importantly the RWL/recommendstion letter is (if there are any surviving and available for review), along with any other assessed evidence .... it'll all come out in the wash if you're been mis-sold or not !

We're here if you need any guidance or comment following any review !

Hope this helps

Holly xx

mr_gilmore

Thanks Holly, that would be fab!

magpiecottage

I agree that if it is unit linked there may be an issue, Holly - and the dramatic change may indicate that it is.

However CGU offered with profits low cost endowments too. If it is entirely with profits the OP would need to persuade FOS they were prepared to accept no risk at all.

Last year I had a 1999 sale (with another insurer) where the complainant tried to do so. I rejected it in August, an adjudicator at FOS rejected it in September and an Ombudsman got to look at it (and reach the same conclusion) in January.