Old Endowment

[Chrisi]

Does the DAta Protection Act cover personal or financial information held by a company going back to 1987?

 

My/our endowment was taken out in Februiary 1987 for 25 years. The new regulations under which would would have been able to claim compensation came into force in April 1988. I didn't know this until I eventually traced the original IFA who sold it to us, and he very kindly pointed out this fact to me.

 

When he replied to my letter, which had advised him that we were mis-sold the endowment in the first place,etc. he stated that he had reviewed our files and that all aspects of the financial arrangement had been discusssed with us. This was not so, but I have no proof other than very clear memories. I have replied asking for copies of all information he holds on file regarding us and the policy we took out. If he still has these files, is he legally obliged to supply me with copies on request under the Data Protection Act or any other Act?

 

Can anyone shed a bit of light on this please?

[dave]

I think it covers ALL personal information held about you regardless of how far back you want it.

 

If they hold it, then they must provided it.

 

However, they are only legally obliged to hold it for 6 years (although it might be 12 for property, like the Statute of Lims, but I'd need to check that).

[Chrisi]

Thanks for coming back so quickly. When I replied the first time I asked for the information under the "Data Protection Act 1998." This was on the 16th March. So far I have had nothing back from him. I was just wondering whether there was an earlier Act I should refer to if I have to write again, and does the 40 day limit also appliy to a case like this.

[Guest oatman]

Does the DAta Protection Act cover personal or financial information held by a company going back to 1987?

 

I also had policies from before the new act. I did some checking up a few years back and I don't think they're covered.

[auto98]

Thanks for coming back so quickly. When I replied the first time I asked for the information under the "Data Protection Act 1998." This was on the 16th March. So far I have had nothing back from him. I was just wondering whether there was an earlier Act I should refer to if I have to write again, and does the 40 day limit also appliy to a case like this.

 

Did you send the £10 statutory fee (under the Data Protection Act)?

[Chrisi]

No I didn't, wanted to keep it informal at the moment. I'm not convinced that even though he said he had reviewed my old files that he actulally has them. He says the paperwork shows that the sale of the policy was conducted properly, whereas I know it was not. Even though I now know that I'm not covered by the new regulations, if he can't produce the documents he claims to have looked at, perhaps the Financial Ombusman would be interested in my claim. It would be his word against mine. I've got nothing to loose and maybe a bit to gain. I'll drop another letter off with a copy of the original and sent it recorded delivery this time.

[Chrisi]

Finally got a wad of papers from the agent. Some I already have, but there is no financial investigation into our attitude to risk. The only reference, if you can call it that, is a sketch showing how much we would not be getting if we went for the repayment option instead of the endowment. He has hightlighted all the secions of the "Key Notes" showing that we may not get back, etc....

As it was more than a year before the new rules came into force, does anyone think it would be worthwhile sending copies to the Financial ombudsman?

[Nightmare4banks]

Hi all!

 

Chrisi,I am very sorry to read about your endowment policy problems.

 

In order to hopefully help you further,please provide the answers to the following questions:

 

1.How much did you borrow in 1987 to purchase the property?

 

2.How much have your monthly repayments(endowment) been since taking out this policy?

 

3.Over how many years was the policy taken out? Please include starting month in 1987.

 

 

Hopefully I will be able assist you further once you post your answers to the above questions as I have worked in the mortgage industry and also personally persued my endowment policy provider and obtained a full refund of the shortfall a few years ago.

 

Also,please note:

 

a.that you will need to get your skates on to claim as I understand that any claims will be time barred in around 2 months or less from now.If I am mistaken,please anyone correct me.

 

b.that you could hire the services of a "no win no fee" endowment claims company but I am not in the position to comment here because I persued my own claim by myself and won.

 

c.In my view and from personal experience the DPA request is of no importance.

Basically,the reason being if your are currently worse off as a result of taking out an endowment policy - you were missold that policy and you would be entitled to compensation.It is as simple as that.

I will go into further details once I receive your answers to the above questions.

 

d.Personally,I would not persue any claim with the ombudsman but deal directly with the company that the policy is underwritten with.

[Chrisi]

Hello there Nightmare4Banks,

Sorry to have been so long getting back to this site. Have been on holiday and persuing bank charges has been more of a priority till now.

 

Here are the answers to your questions:

1. We borrowed £20,000 in 1987. It doesn't sound like much now, but back then it was a fortune to us. The promise of an extra lump sum at the end of the term was his selling point to a young couple with two small children.

 

2. The monthly repayments are £37.34 per month for the policy. We had the mortgage interest only payments to pay as well until we remortgaged in 2000.

 

3. The policy started on the 6th February 1987 and was for 25 years. It is no longer attached to the mortgage and is just running as a separate endowment policy until it matures. We now have a normal repayment mortgage.

 

a. I know there is a time limit and Axa have told us that we have until 31st July 2007 by which time we have to have started to complain. I started in 2002 by approaching Axa who now run the policy who referred me to a financial adviser I had used. He told me to contact the original seller of he policy. I eventually tracked down the original company earlier this year.

 

b. I do not want to hire one of the "no win no fee" sharks.

 

c. I am well aware that we were mis-sold the policy, but I keep coming up against the fact that the new rules preventing mis-selling did not come into force until more that a year after our policy commenced. An extract from the letter recieved from the selling agent is:

 

"We would advise you that under the Financial Services Authority policies that commenced prior to the 29th April 1988 do not fall within the Financial Services Ruling on mis-selling. A reduced investment performance is not in itself a basis for complaint as there is no guarantee ivolved with this investment. We would advise you herefore that your ploicy falls outside the compensation regime."

 

d. My problem with dealing directly with the original company is that the policy was issued by Sun Life who have been taken over by Axa and they want nothing to do with it. The policy was originally sold to us be an agent of the company I am now in touch with. Is our dispute with the company or the agent?

 

Chrisi

[Nightmare4banks]

Hi all!

 

Chrisi,having read al your posts I would like to state the following:

 

1.In order to possibly assist you further I will need to know the current "Cash in Value" for your endowment policy.Contact AXA by phone(Do not be surprised if it is fairly low - this is what motivated me to get all money back!) and ask how much you would get if you cashed in your policy on the day of the call.

 

2.To succeed in getting your money back/compensation it has to be the fact that the salesperson/agent missold you the policy rather the performance of the Stock Exchange.The main thing is that you are out of pocket now.

 

3.In my view,I think you would have to persue the agent and not AXA.

 

4.In 1987,your agent must have been selling products from more than one company.Otherwise,he would have been a "tied agent" i.e. he would have sold

products from one company ONLY.This is the difference.

 

As soon as I receive the Cash in Value of your policy,I will work out your compensation for you backed up with the reasons/methods the industry uses - similar to when they calculated my compensation.Also,do not forget to post any other information which youmay not have posted yet - if any mainly regarding the shortfall and comments of the agent regarding the policy.

[Chrisi]

Hello there Nightmare,

Thank you so much for offering to work this one out for me.

Have finally managed to get therough to Axa and their estimate of the cashin value as at 21st June 2006 is £10,173.08. I don't think this sum includes the final bonuses which are only payble if the policy runs to the end of its term. In 2004 they amounted to £6000+. They write to me every July with the current update, so I might just hold on for a week or two to get the current figures before taking this any further. Will come back when I have the newest figures.

[Chrisi]

Hi, I'm back. Hope you're still around, Nightmare.

 

My cash-in value today, 18th August is £10,282.43 and this includes the bonuses already attached to the policy. The projected final sums are:

@3% growth = £14,700 with shortfall of £5,300

@5% growth = £15,100 with shortfall of £4,900

@7% growth = £17,500 with shortfall of £2,500

 

The original target amount was £20,000 and the and the selling point was that it would come in much higher at somewhere around £34,000.

 

The policy started in February 1987. The new rules came into force in April 1988.

The agent has already told me that there is no case to answer because it was commenced before April 1988.

 

However, I'm quite prepared to have another go at him if you can give me enough ammunition.

 

The company who sold us the Sun Alliance Policy (now Axa) was Maybury & Co.

I don't know wheher the agent they used was a direct employee or a freelance salesman. Is our argument with the company or the salesman?:-?

[Chrisi]

Hi,

Is there anyone else who could shed some light on this problem? Is Nightmare4banks still about?

 

I'm not sure I have a case here, but would appreciate anyone else's thoughts as to whether to proceed or not, in view of the fact that my dates fall outside the new regulations.

 

I've no idea how to work out what I might be able to claim, so if anyone can give me a clue where to start I'll try juggling some figures to see it it would be worth trying.

Thanks, Chrisi

[Chrisi]

This one is dragging on a bit now. I've been reading and re-reading all the documents I recieved from the company who sold us the policy. I can find no reference anywhere to any consideration being given to our attitude to risk and have drafted the folliwng to send back to them:

 

S. R.......... , Esq

Messrs. ..........& Co.,

 

(address)

 

Dear Mr. ............,

 

Sun Life Policy No. 0000000 (now Axa)

 

Some time ago I wrote to you regarding the above policy, and belatedly, I thank you for all the copy paperwork you sent. I have studied all the papers in detail and would like to make the collowing comments:

 

1. I am not concerned with the poor performance of this policy as I am well aware, these days, that no one can predict the movements of the stock market. However, back in the ‘80’s when my husband and I were young new parents, we had very little knowledge of the stock market and were, and still are, very careful with what little money we had.

 

2. I refer to the penultimate paragraph of your last letter to me. You state that in your opinion we were properly advised at the time with regard to the difference between repayment and endowment mortgages. This is not correct, and although I have no doubt that, as you say, our financial situation was noted on your files, as disclosed by our accountant at that time, our attitude to risk did not come into the discussion we had with the salesman who visited us.

 

3. I remember, as though it was yesterday, the representative from .......... coming to our house one evening to discuss the new mortgage and I reiterate what I said in my previous letter:

“This policy was sold to us at a time when we were financially stretched to the limit with two small children. No mention was made at the time of the salesman’s visit to us of the possibility that it might fail to perform as promised. The selling point of the interest-only mortgage and the associated endowment policy was not only that it would be cheaper for us to do it this way, but that it would provide a “nice little nest egg” for our retirement. I remember asking about a repayment mortgage like our previous one, but it was dismissed as totally unsuitable for us in this case, and again it was stressed that there was no risk in the proposed policy, it could not fail, and to remember the lump sum at the end.”

 

4. The contents of the “notes associated with the quotation” were shown to us and dismissed by the salesman as merely a formality and a legal requirement. The only record I can find on the files regarding the salesman’s discussion with us is a crude drawing representing the expected rise in value of the product he was determined to sell us in comparison with the results of taking a repayment plan. I have read and re-read all the copies of all the paperwork you sent and I can find no record at all regarding our attitude to risk. If such a document exists, would you please send me a copy of it?

 

5. My real concern is that an endowment mortgage was totally unsuitable for us at that time and therefore in simple and plain English, MIS-SOLD.Thus it should never have been offered, let alone sold to us. Our small business had just crashed and we had to re-mortgage to get out of serious debt.

 

6. In the last letter I received from Axa showing how much shortfall there was expected to be, there is a note at the end of the letter informing me thatI had to make a complaint before the 31st July 2007. My complaint to Axa went in a long time ago, but they told me I had to find the agent who originally sold us the policy. I found ........... & Co last year and my initial complaint to you was dated 25th January 2006, so I am well within the set time limits.

 

7. Finally,I intend to pursue this complaint, but will delay any further action for two weeks from the date of this letter to give you a chance to comment/act upon on the above information.

 

The contents of this letter must not be take personaly in any shape or form.

 

I look forward to hearing from you soon.

 

Yours sincerely,

 

If anyone has any comments or points of view on this, please post. I would be most grateful before I have to print and post.

Chrisi

[patdavies]

Did you send the £10 statutory fee (under the Data Protection Act)?

 

Just to point out that it is not a statutory fee.

 

It is entirely up to the person holding the data how much,, if anything, they charge for providing the data requested.

 

Statute provides that any such fee may not exceed £10

[Chrisi]

[

 

If anyone has any comments or points of view on this, please post. I would be most grateful before I have to print and post.

 

Hi all

Can any one help with this please. I don't want to post the letter with no idea of how I am going to follow it up if they come back and ask what I expect them to do.

 

Does anyone out there know how to work out what any compensation should be for the difference between the endowment mortgage and a repayment one taken out at the same time?

Chrisi

[YEDMANS]

Chrisi

 

There's no point in trying to work out compensation, you aren't entiltled to any !! Like you I took out an endowment policy in 1987 through an Independant Financial Advisor (IFA), also with Sun Alliance. Mine is on track for a shortfall of 40%, considerably more than yours. I have been on the warpath with R&SA, the IFA, FSA, FSC and the FOS for over 3 years and have repeatedly hit the same brick wall that you have now come up against. The bottom line is people who bought endowments pre April 1988, from an IFA, have no legislation to protect them, so if your IFA is being unhelpful then it's tough luck, you would probably be the same in

his/her shoes. Whilst we both feel this is grossly unfair, unfortunately it's reality.

 

The only chance we have is to sue the IFA, but that may cost more than you are fighting for. So for the last 6 months I have been corresponding and visiting my local MP, who has been most helpful and referred the matter to the Treasury Select Committee (TSC). Guess what? They have known about the problem of pre-1988 endowments for years, even highlighting the plight of people such as ourselves in a Treasury Select Committee Report:- Restoring confidence in long-term savings; Endowment Mortgages, published in February 2004. Item 29 in the Conclusions and Recommendations chapter of this Report states "Consumers may need more help in establishing fair redress in some cases, with the main problem areas relating to policies sold via IFAs prior to 1988"

 

Three years on, the government is totally aware of our plight, and we have had no help or official recognition. I can only suggest you write to your own MP and ask him to politely remind the TSC of the conclusions of this Report. This is your last resort and I don't hold out much hope, as they have known about the real victims for years and done sweet FA. Best of luck.

[Chrisi]

Thank you Yedmans for your input.

 

Although my Endowment is also with Sun Alliance (now AXA), I've no doubt I used a different financial adviser/agent. I appreciate what you are saying that we are outside the legal time window, but there is just a chance that my IFA may just have a moral concience. Anyway, I've got nothing to lose by writing to him with all the facts and, my opinion, and see whether he has anything to say. I have edited my original letter at post No.14, with some amendments offered by Nightmare4banks, rather than enter it again here.

 

The letter is now typed and ready for recorded delivery, so I'll just have to wait now to see what, if anything, comes back.

 

If, as I expect it is a big fat negative, I will try my local MP as you suggest. Again, there is nothing to lose by making a nuisance of ourselves.

Chrisi

[YEDMANS]

Chrisi

 

Let us know what happens please, as I've never heard of an IFA with a conscience before !!

[colin4karen]

Hi,

Has anyone got anywhere with the endowment compensation?.

My mum is in the same predicament. Her and my dad bought their house Feb 1987, and they have been told they now have a shortfall.

I am currently in the process of searching and investigating for them. I seriously can't believe there is nothing you can do. Surely there's a way of getting some of the lost money back???

 

I'd be very grateful if anyone can help.

 

Thanks

 

Karen

[honeybee13]

Hello there. It might be better for you to start your own thread as this one goes back nearly 5 years and things may have changed.

 

My best, HB

[colin4karen]

Hello there. It might be better for you to start your own thread as this one goes back nearly 5 years and things may have changed.

 

My best, HB

 

Hi,

 

I wrote on that particular thread as I wanted to see whether they had managed to obtain compensation or resolve it somehow. Thanks for your input though..

[Nightmare4banks]

Hi All!

 

 

Karen,I am very sorry to read about your parents' endowment problems.

 

 

I would suggest that you contact the FOS for your parents and make a complaint.

 

You can find out more on the following link:

 

http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/publications/factsheets/mortgage_endowment_complaints.pdf

 

If I succeeded in getting my money back so can you and your parents!

 

I hope this helps.

 

If you have any more questions,just ask.

 

Keep us posted!

 

All the best!

 

Nightmare4banks

[Chrisi]

This topic was closed on 03/08/19.

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