Nicstids

Re endowment policies!!

We decided back in February that it was no longer worth keeping our 2 endowments so tried to sell them. No joy!! We obtained surrender values and were horrified that we wouldn't even get back what we'd paid in on one of them.

Before surrendering though we needed to sort out replacement life cover - no go - as hubby is in the Navy and there was a war on, no company would touch him with a barge pole! Now the war is over we've got life cover sorted and I've just got an up to date surrender value on one of the policies.

Get this - it's gone down £2000 in 3 months!! That's a 1/5th of its value!! Do we still surrender or hope that it's going to recover?! Grrrrr - I'm well p*** off!!


Nicola

r.bartlett

unless you need the money i would try to hold on to them..at some point another stockmarket 'boom' will happen and the value should increase accordingly..

anywya good luck with them..any news of joining up in the australian navy??

cheers

richard

Atticus

Nicola

Sorry to hear about the bad use - there is nothing worse or frustrating. Maybe as suggested hold onto it? All the best anyway.

regards

rizalan

karawara88

Nicola, you may be able to claim they were wrongly sold and get all your money back. I complained to Barclays because endowment was worth about £8k and I paid in £13k my grounds were that they did not inform me there was a chance that it might not pay off my mortgage.

As I said got all I paid in back which meant I just lost 8 years of interest. I also have another worthless endowment and a shed load of shares that are worth diddly squat and have decided to just sit on them until the stock market picks up.

Nicstids

Trouble is, the one I'm talking about is with AMP Pearl - AMP (an Ozzie co) are selling Pearl and the Daily Mail seem to think the with profits funds will go down the pan afterwards (that's my non technical interpretation!!)

Aus Navy have said that they're interested but no vacancies at present - they've said to apply again in 12 months. Current plan is for me to look at getting admitted as a solicitor in Queensland. Litigation solicitors are on the STNI for Victoria so we may go that route. We wouldn't have to worry then about any increase in points....

Cheers

Nicola

Sindy

Hi Nicstids,

Commiserations. I am afraid we know the feeling. We also have 2 Endowment policies and in February 2001 one of them was valued at £22,000

A year later,despite paying in another £1000 it was down to £18,000

A year on and the new valuation was now £13000

The February valuation was based on stock market figures from the previous December. When I checked up on it's current value it was down again to about £10000

When we started the migration application the £22000 formed an important part of our financial calculations. Now we have decided to look into making the policies paid up and hang on to them till things improve.

Who knows it might provide a nice little windfall in a few years time (Tax implications withstanding)

Hope it works out for you in the end

Bill (Sindy's Husband)

Nicstids

Hi

Thanks for the tip. I'm definitely going to look into this. Although perhaps, as a solicitor, it sounds a bit naive for me to claim that I didn't know the risks involved in an endowment!!

Nicola

Nicstids

Bill

Perhaps you should look into putting in a claim for mis-selling as Karawarra suggests...

By the way an IFA said to me that, if you leave the policies paid-up, the life cover keeps going. (I thought it would terminate the life cover when I asked about this.) This means that monies are being withdrawn from your fund to pay for the cover, meaning that it depreciates in value even quicker



Nicola

karawara88

Nicola, it would not matter because if you were sold your endowmnet on the grounds that it would pay your mortgage off and they did not say there was a chance of a short fall, they wrongly sold it.

How many people would have taken endowments had they been told there might be chance they would not have enough to pay off mortgage. ?

All you need to do is phone your endowment company and say you think it was wrongly sold. They have to send you out a form you fill it in and thats it. !! Definatley worth a go.

It took me approx 3 months to get a decision and the money was paid straight into my mortgage account.

http://www.endowmentvictims.co.uk/~e...cus/index.html

Sindy

Thanks for that information Nicola. I was unaware that the life cover premium continued even after it was paid up.

The main Endowment we have is linked to the FT30 index. Over the last few years this has taken a real pounding. The main dilemma for us it that it would only have to recover a little more and the value would be worth more than the compensation for miss-selling.

A crystal ball would come in handy around now

Despite all the good advice from yourself, Richard and Karawara I can see us flipping a coin for the final decision.

Good luck to all

Bill

DevMountain

Not sure if have had the correct info. We have been warned that if we carry on our endowments that we would be liable to pay tax on them. We tried to freeze them but the company would not allow it. We have now contacted a company that will handle a miss selling claim for us. There is a fee but if he can get some money back then at least we shouldn't have lost as much.

Does anybody know what to do with Pensions?

JamieSelway

As far as the misselling thing goes. I seem to remember there being a time limit of six years from the sale to when you make a claim for misselling.

Hope this doesn't rain on anybody's parade!

Wotan

I suggest you contact the insurer and state that you want to FREEZE payments. Then, if you wish, you can pay the endowment premiums up to date and continue the policy at a later date (e,g. if financially worth doing so, i.e. if economy/shares improve).

Its foolish to sell/surrender the policy at this time.

TIZUS

Can anyone recomend an IFA with knowledge of the Nz system?
Thanks Tori

Alan Collett

Nicola,

Though unrelated to your original posting about endowment policies, my colleague Helen O'Hare (who works for Go Matilda and who lives in the South of England) is a Barrister of the High Court of Australia, is a Barrister and Solicitor in the Australian Capital Territory, and is a Barrister New South Wales 1991.

Helen is currently assimilating details of the current requirements for admission as a solicitor in each of the States and Territories of Australia, and if you want to contact her to ascertain the requirements in VIC (say) you could email her via helen-at-gomatilda-dot-com. I understand that the current expectation is for the relatively easier requirements for admission in QLD to be tightened soon ...

Best regards.