After 6 months fighting my endowment company they have offered me 5.5k back. Is it worthwhile fighting on for more or have I no chance.
Not being greedy - honest:D
Alas

If this is on an investment of 10k.. not so good.. 1k, I'd say you done good..

Sorry m8
Did'nt explain myself. Its on a mortgage endowment policy that is going to come up short on maturity. As usual it has been worked out with FSA guidelines but I wondered if anyone had carried on fighting & won as they have admitted to me that the policy was not suitable for me at the time.
Alas

Oh my god!!!! Is that all?
We are still waiting for ours and have no idea what the figure will be!!!
At the moment it is expected to make an £11k shortfall on an endowment of £50K.

Will keep an eye on this thread and see if anyone does get a decent payout. (not sure they will though!!!!)


Joan

It took me over 18 months to win my complaint. I got back what I had paid in from the start of the endowment plus about a grand in compensation.
I considered this a result as it meant that I could convert the balance to a repayment and wipe out the potential deficit.

I would imagine that's about the best you could hope for.
Allan

Why did they agree it wasn't suitable, I challenged the TSB in that I only needed 4K for a home repair 12 years ago and they flogged me a 10 year endowment and on my complaint said that they thought an endowment was OK given I'd said my risk aversion was 4/10. Which I though was obviously crap.

Just an update on our Mortgage Endowment Complaint....

We have been offered £27,500. This apparently will put us back where we should have been if we had taken a Repayment mortgage instead of an Endowmment.
It also says the mortgage payments would go up from £850 to £1127 per month, so we`re not sure what to do now:confused:
Anyone else had any offers?


Joan.

I'm not an expert but that sounds all you could expect, very similar to my own circumstances. Surely this means your unknown deficit has now been converted to a known debt. The increase is due to you switching to a repayment, I'm assuming that you are going to give the £27.5k to the lender and not buy a new STi :D

Allan

Well, we did think of that:D

Joan.

Joan, this was the same as my father achieved with his complaint. He accepted as it put him back where he should have been anyway. At the end of the day what more could you expect?

I am on my way to the showroom :D I only need telling once:D:D:D

No seriously. if we pay the £27000 to the lender we will be £50 a month better off if you add the endowment premiums to our current mortgage.
Current 847 Endow Mortgage + 124 Endowment = 981
Repayment (not paying off any capital) 1127
Repayment (paying off 27000) 930

All the best
Pete

Alpine99,
Currently the `Final Bonus` is worth quite a lot, but if we take up this offer we will never know if we would have made it anyway.
We are not sure if we want to risk losing this bonus as it is in a closed fund now.
Not sure if that makes any sense but I`m not very clued-up on these financial things, but I`ve done my best to explain it!!!!

Joan.

So if I read this right, your paying off the £27.5K, saving £50 per month and are wiping out any potential shortfall from your endowment............still sounds good to me.

Although I've just realised you could afford PPP on that Sti :D

Allan

That is probably what most of the companies will try and do, IF they feel that your complaint is valid, and needs financial redress.

So, have we got a good deal here then?

Joan.

Just found my letter with the details of my endowment, its underperforming by a long way too,

Is it too late to put in the complaint forms, as i rember at the time i purchased the endowment morgage in 93' It was the only was to get a morgage and would give me a nice little lump sum left over after the mortgage had been paid off

Phil G

Do it straight away, what have you got lose?????

There`s no harm in trying.

Joan.

Phil,
Couple of links for you
Time limits for complaints
general info on endowments

Your policy is post 1988 so you should be OK, however you need to have a genuine reason for claiming.

Allan

How does this sound for the wording of the basis of complaint

At the time of purchase myself and now wife were 21 years of age and had no previous experience of the housing market or financial investments, This was our first housing purchase and followed the advice of the financial advisor that a endowment mortgage was the the best for us at the time and the future, it was explained that the endowment was the best method to pay off a mortgage as the stock market always makes money over the long term.

Im going to post this off tomorrow

Phil G

We got our solicitor to do the initial letter, not sure how much it cost though as we were moving at the time and came in with the price.......

Joan.

Phil,
I successfully won my claim on the grounds that it was not fully explained to me that the endowment was linked to the stock market and the associated risks. I also included the original documentation, which contained contradicting statements about the risk, in fact one part stated it would definitely meet the required amount.
I suggest you check your paperwork very carefully, look for anything that will substantiate you claim. I also had another leaver that it was not explained to me the consequences of becoming a 40% taxpayer during the life of the policy.

Be prepared for your company to reject the claim, most do. You must then take your case to the ombudsmen. It's a lot of form filling (mostly the same info) but worth it. As I said before you must have a genuine reason for claiming, state you have been mis-sold this policy and your reasons why.

Allan

when you make the initial complaint, all you need to say is
'I have reviewed my endowment performance and wish to make a complaint. I was never told that there was a possibility that it would not pay off my mortgage.'

All they need to see is the policy number and the word complaint. Most life offices have full time teams dealing with these now, and your only grounds for complaint are as above. You cannot complain that the policy is underperforming if you knew this was a possibility.

Will all those people who had a surplus be giving the money back......i dont think so.

You have to be able to show that you were sold the endowment with misleading information or that it was totally unsuitable to your needs at the time and you were not advised about that point.

Les

What you want to hope is that your Endowment was sold to you by Fast Bloke, that way he gets lots of complaints against him ;)

Seriously though, There is a LOT of information that is gathered when looking at these complaints, for example, You will probably be asked to fill out a questionnaire regarding your endowments, and also sign a letter of authority, then what the company who are investigating your complaint will more than likely do is the following (in no real order)

Get copies of your policy(s)
Get copies of PFR(s) (Personal Financial Review)
Ask for report(s) from the rep(s) who sold the policy(s)
Contact Mortgage Lender for details

All of this can take a lot of time, to gather and collate, it may not seem a lot, but when you think about the volumes of people who are complaining, so before the complaint can be investigated they need to gather a lot of information, and this can take time, as you are waiting on information coming back from several places etc…

All this needs to be collated before the case can be passed to someone to look at all the information etc...

Ian

Just an update on my claim here

I got a letter this morning, telling me i had been mis-sold the policy and offering me cash compensation to the amount i would have had if i had taken out a repayment morgage.

Im not sure if it is worth rejecting the offer, it has been calculated using FSA guidelines, think ill take the money and run, :)

Thanks for starting this thread whoever it was cos without it i would not have bothered,
If you have an endowment put a claim in, you have nothing to lose, the worse there can say is NO!!!

Phil G

This is an area thats been bothering me for a while now. I have been paying into an endowment for about 6-7 years now and its only worth £2.5k when I have actaully paid in well over £5k so far :eek: :(

It has 20 years left to run yet so should I keep it going and go on the basis the financial markets always go full circle on a regular basis and my fund will recover at some point or should I take the hit now and cash it in and invest the 2.5k some other way?

Its not needed for the mortgage anymore as I went repayment only asap but kept it as a nice payout in 20 years time. However at this rate it will pay out 50% of what I paid in! [img]images/smilies/mad.gif[/img]

Any advice?

[Edited by ************** - 1/15/2004 9:16:05 PM]

Well done Phil, sounds like a result :D