Endowment complaints procedure - worthwhile

One extra complication I have is that it looks like

The insurance company is not liable to you. It just provides a product which someone else has sold to you and it won't know the details of the sale, so it's not its fault. If the original seller is no longer trading then contact the Financial Services Compensation Scheme on 020 7892 7300 and discuss it with them.

Rob Graham

Maybe not originally, but during the mid 90's there was a lot of publicity with regards endowment policies and the possibility of them not covering the mortgage at the end. One of the aspects about this that is most annoying is that in '97 (a decade after the I started paying) the insurance company issued a review of the policy that included in it the statement "We are sure you will be pleased to hear that the policy proceeds currently remain on track to achieve or exceed the .....". This statement to swayed me towards not addressing the shortfall issue for another 4 years.

Just had a look at their web site (the FSCS). It seems that if you were sold the policy prior to August '88 (which I was) then you've had it.

How is the interest bit of the loan doing compared with the projection?

In the event that this is a lot lower than what you expected to pay, are you putting the savings you are making towards the capital contributions, and if so, how does that affect your projections?

If I'm understanding correctly, what you're infering is that whilst returns on the policy are low, but so is the interest payments, and that the 2 are linked (low investment returns associated with low interest rates). I would guess that this is a valid point, and one that I've not considered before. Of course, as I've not considered this before then neither have I been using the reduced interest payments to help make-up the short-fall. At least not directly - I did switch to a repayment policy circa 2001, so I guess I'm implicitly doing this. However, what annoys me is that it took the insurance company 16 years into the policy to admit that there wasn't a cat in hell's chance of it paying off the mortgage (all reviews up to this point indicating that all was fine and dandy), so I delayed doing this rather longer than I would otherwise have done so if they had been (as I see it) more honest and up front about this.

LC

. However, what annoys me is that it took the

Everything *was* fine and dandy until the stockmarket took a plunge. If you'd known this was coming maybe you should have switched to a less risky fund. But I doubt if you knew to do this. The point really is, did the advisor who sold it to you tell you about the risks. If not it's not the insurance company's fault. If you knew the risks and were happy about it then you don't have a case.

Rob

Lucy

You are of course upset that your policy is not likely to give you the returns that you expected. But by your own admission you were aware that there was a risk.

To make a successful claim you would need to declare that you were not aware that there was a risk. This would mean that you would have to compromise your obvious integrity.

Clearly, if an individual has a genuine cause for complaint this should be investigated and proper compensation paid.

The compensation payments being made to people who may have few scruples do not appear from thin air. Ultimately they come from policyholders or shareholders funds, or in the case of a firm no longer trading, from the pockets of other IFA firms via the FSCS.

Peter Taylor

In message , Robin Graham writes

They are if it was sold via a 'tied agent'.

Yes, true. I was lumping them in with being the insurance company.

Rob

Not at all. The issue is whether the salesman made her aware of the _degree_ of risk not the mere presence of risk (there are no risk free investments). In particular the salesman needed to make her aware that the risk was linked to stockmarket performance. It is not clear that this is the case.

Thom