Clerical Medical Mis-selling query

[Prouty99]

Now I have all of the old paperwork out, I have found a forgotten clerical medical pension that I have that seems a bit dodgy to me.

 

Brief history of the policy;

 

Originally taken out with United friendly in the 80's, who were then bought out or merged at a later date with Royal London. This is /was a mutual with profits.

 

In 2007 I was contacted by an independent financial advisor who said he would take a look at the pension as I was considering transferring the pension to an occupational scheme.

 

The advisor advised me to transfer the existing funds (admittedly not much at the time) into a clerical medical personal pension plan as it would be 'a better option' and 'pay a better amount in the long term'

 

Firstly, CM have never contacted me for a review from 2007 to 2015 (considering the volatility of pensions this seems dodgy)

 

Secondly, as far as I can make out the transfer fee was £4k

 

Two things stand out in the small print on the initial review documents;

 

Assumed growth rates: "Compared with your current plan, the new Clerical Medical plan would reduce your fund by 17.8%

 

Minimum transfer accepted

 

You do not have a particularly large transfer value to invest for your retirement, and so you need a plan which will accept a low minimum stand alone single premium

 

Unfortunately, this plan has one of the highest on the market

 

Policy Fee

 

You should choose a plan with a competitive policy fee

 

Unfortunately this monthly policy fee for this plan is above average compared to other plans on the market.

 

One off installation fee

 

You should choose a plan that has a competitive stand alone administration fee, if at all

 

Unfortunately, one of the highest fees applies to this plan.

 

I went with his advice at the time, and forgot about the pension as I later joined the company scheme anyway,

and just never paid anything else into the private one, but

 

 

over the last couple of weeks I have been tracing things including this and after reading the small print it seems like I was really stiffed on this policy.

 

Luckily I still have all of the paperwork for this one, including 'independent review paperwork' with the name of the advisor should I have any grounds to take this further.

 

Why would someone strongly advise a policy that costs 4K, and loses 17.8% ?

 

I wasn't aware that pension policies charge a monthly fee either (£40 per annum), or installation fee (£100).

 

Thoughts anyone ?

 

Just to add to that, if you read the other thread

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?444060-Tibbett-and-Britten-group-workplace-pensionpost I made about the Tibbett & Britten pension scheme,

this is the scheme which I was considering transferring the funds to, and it was a final salary scheme,

 

so I guess it was a foolish thing to do by not transferring into a company scheme at the time,

but the way things turned out the final salary scheme was wound up in 2012,

so in hindsight a stupid decision, and bad advice at the time has actually turned out to be a decision that has worked out I guess.

 

At the point of sale though it was stupid advice, and a stupid move for me to believe that advice.

[ericsbrother]

Again, speak to the PAS as you may well have a cliam against the IFA/broker if they are still in business. Your problem is trying to assess what exactly your losses were/are going to be as your other scheme is not easy to calculate the benefits due. Expect it to take at least 2 years to get anywhere