Scottish Amicable Endowment - Payment Of Further Bonus

Thermoman

I had an endowment mature earlier this year and had an awful lot of hassle trying to get to the bottom of this.

We ended up making a formal complaint to the customer relations unit.

We got two replies:

One from the Customer Relation Unit said that the residual Scottish Amicable estate of £530m "remained invested in the Scottish Amicable Insurance Fund (SAIF) and became an integral part of the fund". It was therefore not possible to show the further bonuses that our policy had earned by this element of the fund.

A representative of the Chief Executive also replied, and referring to the above, (to summarise) said that there was never an intention to pay an identifiable lump sum as a further bonus, therefore it was not possible to provide us with a succinct formula for the process by which the final benefits have been enhanced.


What I find disappointing is that no one from MSE has picked up on this. I tried emailing them at the time but got no reply though.

Also why the Pru can't simply refer to this in their communications when the policy is due to mature is beyond me - it would surely dispel a lot of suspicion.

I can supply some info on the letters we sent if that helps - but I wouldn't expect much different in the way of a reply.

Froggitt

Thermoman wrote: »

A representative of the Chief Executive also replied, and referring to the above, (to summarise) said that there was never an intention to pay an identifiable lump sum as a further bonus, therefore it was not possible to provide us with a succinct formula for the process by which the final benefits have been enhanced.

This

The balance of the estate of Scottish Amicable will be distributed as further bonuses

looks like there was an intention to pay out as a further bonus.

Has anyone contacted the FSA?

Thermoman

Although:
" The estimate of the estate as at 31 December 1996 allows for the contribution to be paid into the Scottish Amicable Insurance Fund in accordance with the terms of the Scheme (as described in Part V) and includes an estimate of the present value of future profits from non-profit, unit-linked and unitised wilhproh'ts pension business retained in the Scottish Amicable Insurance Fund."


Unless I've got this wrong the above statement seems to tally with what I was told by the representative of the Chief Executive's office in that the £530m was going into the SAIF pot.

Would I be correct in thinking that the SAIF fund only pays out to ex Scot Am policy holders?

Tasape

Hi
Can some one update me on this i have an endowment which comes to an end in Oct 2012 should have been 38000 but now looking at 32k from the last statement , any thought as to what i am likely to be getting in the way of bonus's etc

wills

Is there a forum (other than this one) where Scottish Amicable endowments are discussed? Where fellow investors are in the same boat and are unsure what to do? Cash-in?

Froggitt

Received maturity value today. Much less than I expected.

chaz91

Froggitt wrote: »

This looks like there was an intention to pay out as a further bonus.

Has anyone contacted the FSA?

I found this on the prudential site....

What's an inherited estate?
As a long established life assurance
company, Prudential's With-Profits
Fund contains an amount of money in
excess of the amount we expect to pay
out to existing planholders. This is known
as the inherited estate. It's built up
over many years from a number of
sources and it provides working capital,
to support current and future business.
This capital allows you to benefit from
smoothing and guarantees and allows
us greater flexibility to invest in a wider
range of assets.
We're also required by regulation to
hold a substantial amount of capital in
our long-term fund. This allows us to
demonstrate, at all times, that our Fund
is solvent and able to meet its obligations
to all planholders. The inherited estate

provides most of this

solvency capital.

There are no plans to distribute

Prudential's With-Profits Fund's
inherited estate to planholders or
Prudential

shareholders, other than

as required as part of the normal

smoothing process or to meet
guarantees. We have no current
intention of closing Prudential's
With-Profits Fund to new business,
but if it did close, the inherited estate
would still be needed to support
existing business.
However, SAIF’s inherited estate is
being distributed, under the terms of
the Scheme arrangement, as an addition

of the payouts to its planholders.
Taken from pru site wpbb10001.pdf.

This to me reads as the inherited estate is paid out as a seperate sum to the pru pay out.

Froggitt

Am now into corrresponance with Pru about the non payment of further bonuses as the policy is being paid out as per

the balance of the estate will be
distributed as further bonuses when eligible policies are paid out. These further bonuses are estimated
to have a total current value of around £530 million.

chaz91

I have an scottish am endowment due to mature in april 2012.
Last July the proposed shortfall at 4% was 1,700. In January this year I phoned the pru and and the proposed shortfall has grown by 1,ooo. Has anyone had a endowment mature recently and can give me some idea what the actual shortfall may be?
It almost feels like I am playing "deal or no deal" take the offer now or wait untill april to 'open the box'. The quote I have been given runs out at the end of Feb.

Bettie

chaz91 wrote: »

I have an scottish am endowment due to mature in april 2012.
Last July the proposed shortfall at 4% was 1,700. In January this year I phoned the pru and and the proposed shortfall has grown by 1,ooo. Has anyone had a endowment mature recently and can give me some idea what the actual shortfall may be?
It almost feels like I am playing "deal or no deal" take the offer now or wait untill april to 'open the box'. The quote I have been given runs out at the end of Feb.

Not recently, mine was last July and there was a thread here where Gillingham posted and decided to cash in early and was happy with the outcome and I stayed on to the end and I was fairly happy too. I don't know if she ever worked out the differences. It may be worth reading so you can see the reasons why we both did what we chose. end of the day yes, it was a gamble.