CIS policy
Herbs
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Seems there are a few on here who feel cheated by these policies. I myself had a guy come down regularly to pick up money for the policy (back in the day) and even after the financial crash kept telling me my payout for my policies would be over 60k but come the day when it matured i barely got back what i put in. Finally a new guy came in with the old company guy and when he heard what his colleague told me i could see raised eyebrows- he seemed quizzed that i was being told my maturity amount was so high. Why is there no redress for them as it was obviously missold?
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Have you complained to CIS?
Nothing you have said indicates a missale. Misunderstanding on your part maybe. And a bit of sales patter from insurance agents (which is why you stopped seeing them two decades ago). Plus, a lot of unfortunate timing.
You have industrial branch policies rather than ordinary branch. Industrial branch policies were set up to lower standards than ordinary branch by lower knowledge reps. (collection by door indicates IB rather than OB).
These IB savings endowments went obsolete around 1995. The salesforces carried on with them until late 90s. Individually, they were very small premiums and very expensive to administer and had high charges. Upto the 1980s, the returns were sufficiently high enough to cover those charges. However, they fell back quickly after that. I recall giving 10 year maturity cheques for 4 times what they paid in. Then 3, then double and then there have been periods where people get less back or about the same they paid in. That is because gross returns have been lower as they never worked well in low inflation/low growth economies which is what we have had for several decades.
Financial products are like most retail products. They get old and go out-of-date compared to modern options. You need to keep them under review and switch around when better comes about. If you don't, you end up with obsolete products that are not very good.