Who to send an Endowment Misselling complaint to?

commadus

My father has a policy from Norwich Union but is not sure who advised him to buy the policy, he thinks its an IFA but not sure. Also the IFA who he thinks may have advised him has now passed away. What can he do?

EdInvestor

Complain to NU.They will pass it on to the relevant party if it wasn't them. Sometimes a salesman (eg at a bank or BS) who may appear to be separate was actually working under contract to the insurance company on endowment products.

dunstonh

Probably not worth bothering complaining about an NU policy now. They have been active on the time bars and most of those expired earlier in the year (most issued high risk warning in early 2004).

Those that werent time barred are usually close to hitting target or actually hitting target. If the IFA is dead and his company is no longer trading then you are looking at 18 months to 2 years going through the FSCS only to come out to be told there is no redress payable.

Retired_I.F.A.

... and theres only going to be compensation if your father was told by the salesman the endowment would repay the mortgage and or leave an excess of £xxx without any if's or buts, and it didn't.

If he has an official illustration or the salesman can prove one was given that said there was no such gaurentee then the claim would be kicked out.

Thousands of people have jumped on the bandwagon and screamed missold even though they were not. Most of them have won compensation at the cost to other policyholders simply because itheir claims went uncontested.

dunstonh

I dont know if you still keep much of an interest R IFA but last week in the financial press there was an admission by the chap who set up the pension review that too much money was paid in redress and people were encouraged to have poor memories in order to get redress. The same thing has happened with endowments.

Retired_I.F.A.

i'M not surprised at all Even the old school tie that got the muppets the job in the ombudsmans office is worthless when an journalist says: "c'mon i''ll buy you a pint if you tell me the truth about your old job"
Shame he didn't offer a pint years back maybe someone would have done something about it then.

EdInvestor

Retired_I.F.A. wrote: »

Thousands of people have jumped on the bandwagon and screamed missold even though they were not. Most of them have won compensation at the cost to other policyholders simply because itheir claims went uncontested.

The reason why the claims went uncontested is that those who sold the endowments have lost/destroyed the paperwork and can't prove the sale was fair.And since it's up to the seller to prove they did the job properly, the victim will win by default.

It's not often the financial services industry operates on behalf of the victims, but this is one example.

Re time barring, to be barred from making a claim you must have received a 'red letter" from the endowment provider stating there is a "high risk" the endowment will not repay the mortgage more than 3 years ago.If you never received a letter stating this, or it was less than 3 years ago, you can still claim.

Some Norwich Union endowments are doing reasonably well, some not so well.It would be worth calling them up and getting a surrender value and also some maturity projections, which will tell you what NU expects the endowment to pay out when it matures.Also ask whether this particular endowment is covered by the "mortgage promise".If it is, extra money would be available as a top up - ask how much if appropriate.

Obviously there's not much point in making a misselling claim if you would get no compo as the endowment is now performing better, so it's worth checking on this first.

Retired_I.F.A.

EdInvestor wrote: »

The reason why the claims went uncontested is that those who sold the endowments have lost/destroyed the paperwork and can't prove the sale was fair.And since it's up to the seller to prove they did the job properly, the victim will win by default.

It's not often the financial services industry operates on behalf of the victims, but this is one example.

Load of crap mate more often than not its the "victim" who is the conman as
The only way to prove a sale was fair is to produce a written statement from the customer dated at the commencement wherin he/she acknowledged the low cost endowment provided no gaurentee to repay the mortgage, or the customer states he has had from onset an illustration that says such. Such a statement was not required under the compliance rules neither was am illustration so virtually none exist today. A customer merely had to claim the salesman said it gaurenteed repayment and the case goes to compensation uncontested.