people would do well in the UK to realise that they need to PAY for advise. Doesnt matter whether its commission or fees but understand that you need to pay somewhere, some how.

if you expect the adviser to just work for free on the basis that he "may" get something out of it then you are just using a salesman.......you may as well get your advice of here!



edit to be more kind to original poster

[Edited by Tiggs - 7/4/2003 7:21:51 AM]

 

Got a mortgage 6 months ago,used a financial advisor on going through my account i found i had 4 insurance policys that totaled to roughly £150 a month,due to a change in circumstances i couldnt afford them so i cancelled all apart from building/home insurance of £45,2 days later i recieve a letter from the finacial advisor
telling me to pay him £300 pound for lose of commission,i never signed any agreement with him please help
Gaz

 

Ignore him

He will be paid a commission (or not in this case ) by the insurance company. Nowt to do with you.

Tony

 

You haven't cancelled any life assurance or mortgage protection have you? Not a good idea if you have, but we'll put that to one side for the moment.

If you have cancelled policies soon after inception, 6 months in this case, the insurance company may have clawed back any commission paid to the advisors, for arranging the policies. Which if he has got his head screwed on about it all, this will be mentioned in the the T&C's of any application form you signed. You best look at your copies of the agreement and the T&C's to see any mention of this. You are usually liable to make up the amount paid back to the insurance company by the advisor. If he did have a claw back clause in there, then your going to have to cough up.

In answer to your question below, he can't get you blacklisted as such, but if you are liable to pay, he'll probably get a CCJ lodged against you, which will screw up things slightly.........



[Edited by Reffro - 7/3/2003 5:18:52 PM]

[Edited by Reffro - 7/3/2003 5:21:16 PM]

 

cant he get me black listed?

 

whats t&c mean,looked through all the paper work couldnt find any claw back clauses, Gaz

 

Terms and conditions at a guess

 

did you pay him any money? if not why do you expect him to work for you for free? if a mechanic serviced your car then you decided to sell it would you ask him for the cost of service back?

that aside.....you will prob fine the adviser doesnt have it in his T&C (few do) but works on the basis that 80% of ppl will pay up without question.

T

 

Yup Terms & Conditions.

If no mention is made in the T&C's of a claw back clause, ask the advisor to support his claim with documentary evidence of you agreeing to making a repayment to them.

If no evidence is forthcoming, job sorted, and you can forget about it, but don't just simply ignore this at this stage.

I used to work for a Mortgage brokers, and we had this issue all the time as we often would also arrange Life Assurance for customers. When your looking at the commission on a policy for half a million plus, its far from chicken feed. Often we would pay back some of the commission to the customer, but then there were very specific clauses in the T&Cs in the event of any claw back due to early cancellation of the policy to get the money back off the client.

Like I say it was a regular thing at our office, so I surprised it wasn't mentioned in your case. But without a signed bit of paper to say you agreed to anything like the above they might aswell whistle in the wind.

 

the point is he didnt discuse anything about his payment at all all he did was sign me up on loads of insurance policys?Which when investigating wasnt even competitive in price!
Gaz

 

maybe he should have made these clauses clear at the time of sale and then you could have made an informed decision! as to him working for nothing he obviously didn't declare his charges and penaltys up front or this would not be a surprise.

 

ouch..

 

Yeah that's a fair point Tiggs but the thing is many people don't realise that they are being 'sold' something, for which the salesman receives commission. If this is explained at the time then that's fine. If it is not explained at the time then as far as I am aware they are breaking a code of practice, if not the law.

BTW how much do you charge? - I could do with a bit of advice myself.

Charlie.

 

If it wasn't explained clearly to you that stopping the policies would have financial implications then you have nothing to worry about. If you did sign a fee waiver agreement then you may have to pay up. Ask him to show you were you signed in agreement to this.

Tiggs - I am with you in that people should expect to pay for advice, but in a competitive market there are many companies who will work on a comission only basis and take the risk that the policies will be maintained through the earning period. I don't use fee waiver agreements on the basis that 95% of policies survive and I get paid enough comission on them that I don't need to worry about the other 5%.

If the advisor was any good the client should understand what every policy is for and the reasons they need it. I know many advisors who work on the basis that all they need to sign up the policy is a nod of the head, without any clear understanding of the need or benefits of the policy from the client, but strangely their persistancy is often less than 70%. They then moan about people cancelling

 

FB, i agree, salesman sounds like a tool....im just being grumpy