Scottish Amicable Endowment - Payment Of Further Bonus

thebull

so is anyone up for taking this further?

Froggitt

Count me in. Both of mine mature in 2012. I think the first step should be to distribute a pdf of the original sale document with the relevant pages. Does anyone have this? Just upload it to a filedump so everyone can access it.

Bettie

is this dead in the water?
Due to family bereavement and all it entails I haven't had time to put any effort into looking into this and AFAIA I have no evidence either way however I did receive my maturity value yesterday so thought I would pop in and let you all know.
I/we borrowed £28350.00
sum assured £9,980.00
regular bonus £9153.46
Final Bonus £8801.39
I make that 46% and ~£416 short
HTH

Photonic

bluefrew2 wrote: »

I made a complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service after a rejection by the Pru over the matter of the "Further Bonus" and received a reply only a few days ago. Effectively the adjudicator rejected my complaint because "he could find nothing to say that the bonus was guaranteed but was dependant on a number of factors including future investment returns".

The quoted FOS adjudication appears to imply that their findings were that no “Further Bonus” was paid out and that the reasons included the obvious factor of investment returns.
This summary is the opposite to that of my findings, from extensive questioning of Prudential, that originally only received standard replies to state that a residual Scottish Amicable estate of £530 million remained invested and thus was guaranteed to be part of but not accounted for separately in a policy’s “Terminal Bonus”.

Not content with this situation I have continued to press Prudential for a more detailed and personal response to my line of questioning. I recently received a communication that included the following section:

“The Scottish Amicable estate of £530 million is effectively that amount of money held in the With-Profits Fund over and above that required to meet liabilities. This amount would normally be used in a continuing life company to fund future new business and provide investment opportunities for the with-profits policyholders. Following the merger with Prudential the estate was no longer needed for these purposes and was therefore available for release to those with-profits policyholders remaining in the closed fund.
The means of distributing the estate was to be by two methods. Firstly, a special bonus was paid in October 1997 and added to all eligible policies. Secondly, terminal/final bonus rates would be improved so that the overall effect, from these two methods, on a maturing policy would improve final benefits. There was never any intention to pay an identifiable lump sum as further bonus. Therefore, it is not possible to provide you with a formula for the process by which final benefits have been enhanced.
The process described above has been followed and I can confirm that the benefits available from your policy are higher than they would have been had the merger not proceeded. Therefore, the maturity value will not be increased.”

If I am not satisfied by this response then, of course, I can take any complaint further through the Financial Ombudsman Service. But it would appear I have already done more work and received differing, if not more, information than that Service has already presented! Where does one go to complain about the FOS?

Froggitt

There was never any intention to pay an identifiable lump sum as further bonus.

Does anyone still have the original documentation (scanned) to show that this is untrue?

Effectively the adjudicator rejected my complaint because "he could find nothing to say that the bonus was guaranteed but was dependant on a number of factors including future investment returns".

Agreed its not guaranteed, and is dependent on investment returns......but I now want to know what the returns on the £530m were, and how they are being distributed as per the original plan. Unless of course they've p1ssed it all down the toilet.

Photonic

Froggitt wrote: »

Does anyone still have the original documentation (scanned) to show that this is untrue?

‘Fraid I don’t have a copy of the circular sent out to us policyholders (“The Policyholder Circular”), which set out in detail the Proposals under which the business transfer took effect – I discarded it as being bulky, long winded and never to be needed again!
However, I retained the booklet intended to provide answers to the main questions policyholders were likely to have in relation to the proposed transfer of business. It was said to be intended as a guide only and not a definitive statement of our rights under the Proposals.

The Further Bonuses was simply, but not clearly, laid out in the “Questions and Answers relating to the proposed transfer of business of Scottish Amicable LAS to The Prudential Assurance Co.” dated 28 May 1997.
· Part 2, question 4 – “Further bonuses, with a total current value currently estimated at around £530 million, will be added to the bonus of with-profits policies, when the policies are paid out”.
· Part 3, question 19 – “The further bonus will be added when your policy is paid out”.

As a policyholder member I incorrectly understood it to say, at the time, that it would be a separate bonus and identifiable at the policy maturity. Not to be an integral part of the SAIF and a policy’s terminal bonus.

radiouser

Froggitt wrote: »

Does anyone still have the original documentation (scanned) to show that this is untrue?

Hi,
I have the original 'policyholder circular'.
Are you/anyone still interested in seeing this? If you are I will try to scan the relevant pages and upload somewhere.

Regards

Froggitt

Yes please!!!

hansi

I still have the original paperwork but I'm not too happy about uploading that information into the public domain.

radiouser

Froggitt wrote: »

Yes please!!!

Leave it with me and I will sort something out tomorrow and get back to you.

Regards