R&SA Endowment - where next?

Casey1709

Apologies if this type of question has come up before, I've scanned through various threads and not found something that covers our case.We took out an endowment mortgage in May 1988 for £49,500 though The Mortgage Shop in Ilford, Essex with Sun Alliance & Abbey National. After performing well in the early years the annual 'bonuses' got progressively smaller & smaller (0.25% last year, even though my mate tells me the stock market has been growing at an average of 11% pa). We also weren't worried when endowments were starting to get a bad name as Royal & Sun Alliance (who had changed their name) told us they were paying 285% terminal bonuses which would more than pay off our mortgage on its own (& we were still naive about endowments - we thought they were guaranteed to pay off the mortgage with only the amount of money/ bonus on top uncertain). However we got our first red letter warning letter 2 years ago so rang R&SA to make a complaint. They told us we'd have to complain to the broker who sold us the policy so we wrote to them but the letter was returned. R&SA then told us the account was held the Mortgage Shop in Chelmsford. We wrote to them but a different mortgage company at their address replied saying the Mortgage Shop went bankrupt in 2002 and the official receiver closed their file 2 years ago.So where do we go now? Back to R&SA, or do we try the financial ombudsman, or can someone suggest another option?

dunstonh

If the application was signed prior to 29th April 1988 you have no consumer protection as that is pre-regulation. In your case, it is a little later as the firm no longer exists and that would fall under the remit of the FSCS. However, that only applies for applications completed after 28 August 1988.

R&SA have no liability for the advice given at that time. It's end of the road.


Just for clarification, Royal & Sun Alliance still exist but more commonly trade under the More Than brand although its still possible to pick up plans under the Royal & Sun Alliance name. They sold their life and pensions book to resolution life some years back who operate under the Phoenix brand. They are a financially rich company who buy up the life and pension arms of failing life companies. Whilst they do little to improve investment returns due to their conservative investment strategy, there is little chance they will go under. Something that may have happened had companies like Phoenix not come about.