House deposits?

[Squashed_Fly]

This has turned out to be quite an interesting thread after all...

[Col]

When I took out my endowment mortgage policy in 1987, I was informed by the salesman(who worked for a market leading company) that when it matured it would pay the mortgage and the extra would buy me a holiday, or a new car, etc etc..
About 10 years ago , I received a letter informing me of a shortfall, a £12,000 shortfall, we made a mis-selling claim and their only offer was £3500, take it or leave it, leaving the final repayment £8,500 short.

In my opinion, endowment policies were sold, as a product, for the intention of paying off a mortgage, the fact hat they do not
makes them not fit for purpose , the financial institutions should have been obliged to at least cover the mortgages of their customers...>

Toph absolutely nowt personal mate but just my opine regarding endowments

Never understood the liability by providers for these endowments not maturing at the level expected.

I had one and was told that it'd probably pay extra but I paid enough in to ensure that the amount was sufficient for mortgage cover. When they were taken out there were 3 interest rate/growth levels predicted for the amount people paid in and as with all investment the wording did state the possibility of a low return [value can go up or down]. In addition there was a guaranteed payment on death if that were to happen which I considered to be of particular benefit...not that I did croak ;D From memory about £40/month would reach £22k in 25yrs [pay in c£12k]

I am pretty sure the majority of claims have only been made due to the info and widespread publicity resulting in plenty 'jumping on the bandwagon' by people paying in a minimum looking at the highest level final value prediction and then bleating that the figure isn't going to be reached..........jeeeezus even a woman in a bank who is well versed in investments made a claim. The majority of these claims were made against policies still running so the actual final amount was not known anyway as there was only a 'possibility of shortfall'. If left until maturity many policies would meet the predicted final value but not the highest predicted value....in fact there was a good bit of business to be had by buying part paid policies.

Don't believe they are sold anymore.

anyways that's endowments, mortgages, pensions covered ;D ........ what next on Flys interesting finances thread...which indeed it is 8-)

[Squashed_Fly]

Endowment claims are what I used to work on at C&G, and we found that the majority paid out simply because the sellers, despite the small print, were actively telling people to ignore it as it was guaranteed win.

If you have young people (as more were then when you could actually get a mortgage with a small deposit/100% loan) who don't know any better - first time buyers etc, then it's quite easy as a good sales person to convince someone they're onto a sure thing.

But I do agree Col, there are many people also, who would have known better, that are jumping on the bandwagon. But that's just the way things are. There will always be people out there who will try and try and cheat their way out of doing something.

But there are plenty of honest people out there who were swindled. I've seen the evidence (ie all the notes etc from the sales people after the customers left!) as it's what I had to use to base my decision on whether we would pay out on a claim...