| TBH it would seem to be a bit of a lottery. I filed a claim against Abbeylife for my endowments. Fortunately, I no longer have an endowment mortgage but, a repayment one instead. I retained the endowments because they were worth less than I paid in and I wasn't going to throw them away at that stage - they may recover somewhat.
I put a claim in relating to when mine were taken out in '88 because the claims about returns were pure fantasy - at the time the interest rate was about 15% so some very optimistic claims about the growth were made at around 8-14%!!! Of course, history shows otherwise. I also put a claim in on the basis:
1. That it was not made clear to me that there was a significant risk or likelyhood that they would not acrue enough funds - in fact I opted for a low-medium risk policy on the basis that it was best for the long run.
2. The claims for the rate of return were unrealistic.
3. That I relied on professional advise from an "advisor" who was in fact not independent (turned out he work for Abbeylife but, didn't make it clear at the time)
Anyway - Abbeylife came back and basically said that they did not keep the paperwork going back so far and therefore were unable to act upon my claim! Unbelievable really. I put a complaint in to the financial Ombudsman but, he/she was unwilling to act because the complaint had rumbled on so long with it going back and forth between me & Abbey that I had fallen outside the time limits....Abbey dragged their heels for months at a time when it came to answering my letters...like 3-6 months for each letter.
Anway - the cheeky shysters now regularly send me letters inviting me to take out additional policies to make up for the shortfall in the existing ones! There's little chance of that happening - I now view the policies as a means of just saving some money.
I'd say go for it, document it all of course and make sure the endowment compay don't drag their heels to string things out. Be on them all the way.
Good luck!  |