Endowment Delay

FatBadger_3

Hello there

I was hoping for some advice or impressions as I'm very worried about the situation with our 25 year endowment policy, which just matured.

It was originally taken out with Norwich Union but over the course of the policy we now find ourselves with Aviva.

The policy matured a week ago last Monday and a week prior to that we got in touch with Aviva to find out what we were supposed to do. They told us to send the original documents, which we did along with proof of identity. (As per the instructions on the paperwork.) We were told at the time that there might be a delay because they were having "scanning problems. "

The policy date came and went and there was no money and nobody contacted us. So we contacted them again and were told that the scanning problems were still an issue, but that they should be sorted out by Friday and that they would call us back.

Friday came and went and as you'll have guessed there was no money and nobody called us. So yesterday we called them again and we were told that there was still a problem, though I'm not sure whether they were saying it was still a scanning problem or that we were now held up in a huge backlog.

We asked that they confirm where our documents were in the system, what stage we had reached and were told that they couldn't even confirm receipt of our documents, because this scanning process is farmed out to a third party company and they are unable to get those details from them. I don't get the impression that they're particularly bothered.

They suggested we fill out another form saying that we don't have the documents, to bypass this part of the system. But I don't like the smell of that at all and in fact looking through some of the paperwork we have, it mentions doing this but signing a "promise" saying we agree that they can charge us administration fees should they make a mistake during the process.
But anyway why should we. We've carefully kept the documents all these years. We only don't have them now because Aviva have them!

We subsequently called citizens advice and they confirmed that we should definitely not fill out these forms. But that we should now write to Aviva asking that they officially inform us exactly where things stand.

I'm so very disappointed. We've faithfully paid this policy for twenty five years with never a late or missing payment. I was naive enough expect the same courtesy returned to us. The policy under performed significantly, but none the less we had July 27th marked in our minds as the day when we would have the funds to be able to at least make a big dent in our financial burdens. I guess we were premature with the celebration plans.

Also, these Endowments were sold as products to clear mortgages on a set date. So I don't really understand how the policy mature date can come and go, whatever the excuse might be, when supposedly you need to have that money to clear the debt. How can that be legal?

I want to trust them, but so many alarm bells are ringing in my head over this. What is/was this scanning problem? The company my wife works for has an emergency contract with the company who supplies their photocopy equipment. If it goes down someone has to be there within four hours. Do I believe that a multi national insurance company is less professional? It just doesn't seem to mesh. Then a third party company from whom they can't retrieve their own customers details? Really? That just doesn't seem right either.

Plus, this must be a problem affecting hundreds of people surely. But I typed Aviva and Scanning delays into the internet expecting a deluge of negativity with that being the nature of the web and yet I can't find anything. I did find a number of posts suggesting that they'd experienced Aviva using delay tactics though and sometimes this had stretched to months. This worried me even more.

I would be grateful for your thoughts folks. Are we worrying over nothing? Is this standard practice when these policies mature? How can we tell if we are being messed about and what can we do if we are?

Many thanks in advance for any insights.

Badger

scott_lithgows

My old FP endowment matured last month,25 years of direct debits but they pay out by cheque! Hope you sent the documents by special delivery,I think they try to get every little part of interest they can out of someone else's money.

[Deleted User]

FatBadger wrote: »

Hello there

I was hoping for some advice or impressions as I'm very worried about the situation with our 25 year endowment policy, which just matured.

It was originally taken out with Norwich Union but over the course of the policy we now find ourselves with Aviva.

The policy matured a week ago last Monday and a week prior to that we got in touch with Aviva to find out what we were supposed to do. They told us to send the original documents, which we did along with proof of identity. (As per the instructions on the paperwork.) We were told at the time that there might be a delay because they were having "scanning problems. "

The policy date came and went and there was no money and nobody contacted us. So we contacted them again and were told that the scanning problems were still an issue, but that they should be sorted out by Friday and that they would call us back.

Friday came and went and as you'll have guessed there was no money and nobody called us. So yesterday we called them again and we were told that there was still a problem, though I'm not sure whether they were saying it was still a scanning problem or that we were now held up in a huge backlog.

We asked that they confirm where our documents were in the system, what stage we had reached and were told that they couldn't even confirm receipt of our documents, because this scanning process is farmed out to a third party company and they are unable to get those details from them. I don't get the impression that they're particularly bothered.

They suggested we fill out another form saying that we don't have the documents, to bypass this part of the system. But I don't like the smell of that at all and in fact looking through some of the paperwork we have, it mentions doing this but signing a "promise" saying we agree that they can charge us administration fees should they make a mistake during the process.
But anyway why should we. We've carefully kept the documents all these years. We only don't have them now because Aviva have them!

We subsequently called citizens advice and they confirmed that we should definitely not fill out these forms. But that we should now write to Aviva asking that they officially inform us exactly where things stand.

I'm so very disappointed. We've faithfully paid this policy for twenty five years with never a late or missing payment. I was naive enough expect the same courtesy returned to us. The policy under performed significantly, but none the less we had July 27th marked in our minds as the day when we would have the funds to be able to at least make a big dent in our financial burdens. I guess we were premature with the celebration plans.

Also, these Endowments were sold as products to clear mortgages on a set date. So I don't really understand how the policy mature date can come and go, whatever the excuse might be, when supposedly you need to have that money to clear the debt. How can that be legal?

I want to trust them, but so many alarm bells are ringing in my head over this. What is/was this scanning problem? The company my wife works for has an emergency contract with the company who supplies their photocopy equipment. If it goes down someone has to be there within four hours. Do I believe that a multi national insurance company is less professional? It just doesn't seem to mesh. Then a third party company from whom they can't retrieve their own customers details? Really? That just doesn't seem right either.

Plus, this must be a problem affecting hundreds of people surely. But I typed Aviva and Scanning delays into the internet expecting a deluge of negativity with that being the nature of the web and yet I can't find anything. I did find a number of posts suggesting that they'd experienced Aviva using delay tactics though and sometimes this had stretched to months. This worried me even more.

I would be grateful for your thoughts folks. Are we worrying over nothing? Is this standard practice when these policies mature? How can we tell if we are being messed about and what can we do if we are?

Many thanks in advance for any insights.

Badger

Hi Badger

I'm really sorry to see what has happened and would like to help.

So I can do so and follow this up with our endowment team can you please email me at social@aviva.co.uk confirming the following details for security purposes

Full name
Date of birth
Post code
Policy number

If you could also confirm your MSE username in your email, it will help me link your email to this post.

Many thanks

Dave
Aviva Social Media Team

dunstonh

It was originally taken out with Norwich Union but over the course of the policy we now find ourselves with Aviva.

Aviva is Norwich Union. It was a rebrand not merger/takeover.

I'm so very disappointed. We've faithfully paid this policy for twenty five years with never a late or missing payment. I was naive enough expect the same courtesy returned to us. The policy under performed significantly, but none the less we had July 27th marked in our minds as the day when we would have the funds to be able to at least make a big dent in our financial burdens. I guess we were premature with the celebration plans.

it is normally best to start these things about 3-6 months before maturity. Not the week before. That is because policies set up many decades ago, possibly before computerisation, can often require more manual work than with modern plans. Also, some plans of that era would have been assigned to lender and it can take some time for lenders to say they waive assignment.

I want to trust them, but so many alarm bells are ringing in my head over this.

Paranoia is not going to get this resolved. Aviva are known for their admin issues. Especially on old plans.

Plus, this must be a problem affecting hundreds of people surely

probably thousands, if not tens of thousands. I am just one IFA and have sent about 3 letters off to Aviva already this week. There are 20,000 odd advisers out there and millions of policyholders.

But I typed Aviva and Scanning delays into the internet expecting a deluge of negativity with that being the nature of the web and yet I can't find anything.

Short term issues/backlogs are not uncommon and not media worthy.

I did find a number of posts suggesting that they'd experienced Aviva using delay tactics though and sometimes this had stretched to months. This worried me even more.

There are no delaying tactics. That is just paranoia. Aviva dont want to hold things up. Its not in their interests to hold things up as it costs them money.

Are we worrying over nothing?

Yes. Servicing is running slow by around an extra 1-3 weeks. Pension freedom demand has not helped with this as that has created a short term deluge of work for the insurers.

Is this standard practice when these policies mature?

At the moment, yes but normally it is 2-3 weeks.

silvercar

We have had 25 yr endowment policies with Standard Life and legal & general, both have paid out on the day the policy matures by bank credit direct to the bank account from where the DD monthly payments originated.

Really bad that Aviva can't get their act in order - they have had 25 years notice of the end date of the policy.

kingstreet

Standard and L&G have gone pretty much unscathed in the thirty years I've worked in the industry and are still in existence.

However, Aviva is the b*stard offspring of NU, CU and General Accident and if Resolution and Phoenix have taught us nothing else, we do now know that trying to administer legacy contracts from years ago, which are no longer offered, is nothing short of a nightmare.

Andypandyboy

Yes, we had an L&G one mature and it was paid on time by BACS.

dunstonh

silvercar wrote: »

We have had 25 yr endowment policies with Standard Life and legal & general, both have paid out on the day the policy matures by bank credit direct to the bank account from where the DD monthly payments originated.

Really bad that Aviva can't get their act in order - they have had 25 years notice of the end date of the policy.

Both of whom encourage the maturity process to start upto 6 months in advance. Not the week before. Plus, neither of them have legacy issues with companies bought and merged.

Not responding as an excuse but an explanation.

The fact is that Aviva are slow at the best of times. They are slower at the moment due to workload on pension freedoms and starting a week before maturity was too late to get it sorted in time. However, it will get done.

FatBadger_3

@ Aviva: Thank you Dave for the response. I've sent an email to you this morning.

@ Everyone else: Many thanks for the replies and grounded advice, I'm glad I thought to ask the question here. I will post a followup as and when the situation is resolved.
All the best
Badger

FatBadger_3

Hello Everyone. I promised a follow up and here it is.

First a clarification. I mentioned in my original post that we sent the documents back a week before the policy mature date, but actually it was two weeks. We received a letter from Aviva stating that to "avoid delay" we should send the documents two weeks in advance and as instructed that is what we did. Apologies for this misinformation, but as you'll have guessed I'm not the financial brains of the outfit and I got the order of play confused before my original post.

That said, I happy to be able to tell you that the money owed was paid to us on Monday just gone, four weeks after the policy matured.

We basically called on a weekly basis to try to find any up to date information as no calls were forthcoming from them. Eventually we managed to get an admission the "scanning backlog" had "as far as they knew" already been cleared and that in fact they would have expected to have seen our documents before that point. They then suggested that our documents had most likely been "lost in the post".

(I have to tell you at this point that we had shot ourselves in the foot slightly here, because while fully intending to get a proof of delivery when we sent them, we had actually accidentally got a proof of postage instead.)

The young lady we were speaking to said that in fact we wouldn't be asked (as by a prior representative) to fill out a form saying that we didn't have our documents. But in fact it would be sufficient to send copies and she gave us a new address to send them to, which unlike the first was not a PO Box address. Along with a promise that under the circumstances the procedure would be expedited on their receipt.

I must say that fifty odd years experience has shown me that very little is ever actually "lost in the post", despite the cliche being almost part of our national vocabulary. Far more likely in my opinion is that if you farm out documents to a third party company, who we're told are apparently unable to keep track of whose they do and don't have... well then you are just asking for a certain percentage of them to go missing.

We're obviously very relieved to have the whole thing resolved but remain hugely unimpressed by this company's idea of customer support. It would have taken very little in the way of proactive support, to reassure us that everything was in hand and alright. But instead all the legwork was ours and almost all our calls were greeted by a general feeling of cluelessness and at one point an actual heavy sigh, I kid you not.

One of the above posters on the thread, along side some very practical and down to earth advice, mentioned the word "Paranoia" and while I completely agree that paranoia helps nobody, I have to point out that paranoia thrives in dark corners and shadows and cannot survive the light being shined upon it. For folks who have extensive financial experience, professional or otherwise, events like these I am sure look very different. But for ordinary people with 25 years or more invested in something like this, paranoia however undesirable, can be hard to avoid when the company you are dealing with seems perfectly happy to keep customers in the dark.

At any rate, for us the situation is resolved and as easy and cathartic as it would be for me to rant away for another thirty or so paragraphs putting the world to rights, I'm sure you'll be relieved to hear that I'm not going to. I would like to finish though by saying that I hope this thread might at some point help someone in a similar situation, to feel more confident that as dunstonh says above, it will get sorted out in time.

Thanks again all

Badger

himav

Hello Everyone, we are in a similar position as like the original post. Our endowment policy matured on the 12th March'16 and Aviva are supposed to send us the forms 6weeks prior to the mature date. But they have sent a week before after our repeated calls.

Having sent all the forms in a recorded delivery its been over two miserable weeks. Every time we call they say we should get a response in 2 days. 2 days passed by and then we called again and they gave us a deadline that we should have an answer by Wednesday i.e 6th April.

We called then yesterday again only to panic that they have told that they ate inable to locate our file and will update in 2 days?

What kind of response is this keeping our money and would they really understand how hard we have struggled all these years to pay for the policy and when the day comes to pay us they are being very irresponsible.

Amount we should receive is a huge amount and I would assume they are foung this on purpose to delay this. Would they actually understand there are families involved in this and hard it would be on them?

Any suggestions please or what actions should we take?

Many Thanks.