Unusual Endowment Question (I think!)

DBOYLE78

Firstly apologise for my first post being a question - hopefully I can be a source of information some time in the future!
My folks who aren’t very clued up on these things have asked me to help them out with this and I think there must be someone on here that could be of help!

My folks took out an endowment mortgage policy back in 1986 and received a letter earlier this year advising them of an impending shortfall (Maturity is in 2011). It was projected to return £18k but in the letter sent in March this year this was now calculated to return £12.5k.
Now the thing about this my folks have never had a mortgage and there is no loan secured against there home. So what I'd like to know is this sufficient ground for a complaint? (Assuming it isn’t too late) Is arguing that they should they have been sold a different type of investment product sufficient to register a complaint?
I've had a trawl through a few pages of old posts and couldn’t find anything, but if anyone want to post a link to something similar on here - I'll happily take a slap on the back of the ear!
Any help greatly appreciated.
D.

payless

Hey

don't apologise

Not having a mortgage means that a review could not really compare against a repayment mortgage and whether the risks pro/cons of both were discussed. Thats not to say the risks of the policy should have been ignored.

Suppose a "mortgage related policy" might have suited their needs , savings with increased insurance ( over whats normally available with a pure endowment) from the products available at that time - albeit separates may have done the job with more flex.

Was it sold as a "pre mortgage endowment" - again I never liked those, but did have favour with some.

They could ask for a review- but bearing in mind all of the above, and that it was pre 88 policy

( none of the above is financial advice/ or comment to the validity of the original advice - just opening suggestions to consider)

dunstonh

endowments were also available as a savings product and not necessarily linked to a mortgage.

Also be wary that the "projection" is not what you they are going to get. It is an assumption that if it grows at a certain rate for the remaining years taking a current base value (which may not be the real current value). What actually is paid out could be better or worse.

payless

have posted a long reply 3 times - only for my connection to fail-

so sorry short one only

A mortgage endowment would likely imply its got a higher level of life cover ( low cost endowment) than a normal savings endowment ( and hence that means less of money goes into investment)-