| The FSA of late eighties altered the way endowments were sold, all advisors should have made it clear who they worked for and the type of advice given ie independent or not, a letter and business card should have been handed to you on their introduction explainign that status. Any proposal should have been accompanied by a review of the applicants financial status and clearly demonstrate that the advice given was suitable for the client and the risks explained. All proposals should have been accompanied by quotations based upon percentage growth rates determined by the FSA but could include illustrations of current maturity values. As well as this there should have been a section on "clients attitude to risk" which once again would be signed by the client.
As a former sales trainer at one of the largest insures i can say that in the vast majority of cases the proposers had the correct info explained to them when purchasing a mortgage but chose the policy that suited them. We offered 3 types of policy, full endowment, 50% endowment, 50% life cover and 20% endowment 80% life cover and 99 times out of 100 clients went for the cheapest option 20% version despite the salesmen trying his best to sell the full endowment as that would guarantee the mortgage and also give him a lot, lot more commission. Why would they mis-sell a policy giving them less money?? Most could only work of the past history of endowments and given the info at that time it would have been "best advice" to recommend endowment, with hindsight its easy to blame both them and the company.
Most of the big tied agent insurers, Pru, CIS, Pearl etc had that up and running in time for the introduction of the FSA, some Independents and smaller companies might not have.  |