Is it possible to sue an endowment company?

[gordonhall]

I've posted this question elsewhere (... cashing in/selling an endowment) but am posting as a new thread, well, because its a new subject really.

My question is whether there are grounds to sue a company who have mis-managed an endowment?

I'm not talking about the possible mis-selling of an endowment, but the professional negligence involved in the general running of the policy. As you will see in my other thread, if we are to cash in the policy (which I think we will do) we will actually get 3K less than we put in.

So I can either assume that their charges are exceptionally high, or that they are exceptionally incompetant.

I was thinking, from a professional point of view, if I was this incompetant then my professional indemnity would be in use quite a lot!!!

Anyone any ideas or experience of this matter.


Cheers.

[pmhread]

Think you might struggle with this one but I'm sure someone will be along to prove me wrong!

If it's just a question of an investment losing money then I would think there's not a hope in hell. The value of investments may rise and fall etc etc. If you have any luck let me know..... my stockbroker must owe me a fortune!

[gordonhall]

I'm probably guessing not myself, but its a line worth thinking about.

Surely we pay professionals to do the job for us...

[pmhread]

Worth a thought. But even the most professional of professionals can't say which way the stockmarket is going to go.

Investments can fall as well as rise etc etc.

[johnmccallum]

You would not be able to do anything unless you could prove that you were not aware that the policy was unit linked

[gordonhall]

It is/was my wifes policy, bought 12 months before I met her. I can guarantee that she wouldn't know now whether it was unit linked, but whether she was told at the time is a different matter.

Unfortunatley, in this day and age, as long as people are seen to tick the right boxes, it doesn't seem to matter whether the other party understand/can afford/will benefit from a transaction. I'm not just talking about my situation here but just life in general. There seems to be very few ethical people out there that care about what is best for the client. This is magnified hugely by the banks, but its rampant everywhere.

Thanks to everyone who has helped me in this thread so-far.

[Movingon]

I complained to one of these "assurance" firms once because the salesperson had actually misrepresented the benefits available under the policy and how much I would have to pay for activating them... I found that when I came to activate particular bits which I thought were included, they wanted to charge more for them. They wrote back and said regardless of what their salesman had told me, I had signed a document saying that I had read and understood the terms of the policy and the documentation provided. Having signed that I was screwed because the terms and documentation told me exactly what they said it did... the salesman had hoodwinked me into buying something I didn't need, and there's nothing whatever I could do about it.

You may well be in a similar situation here.

[gordonhall]

I think so. Oh well, you've got to learn in life which battles to fight. I think on this one I'll end up selling the endowment and just draw a line under it.

Such is life.

[Neo]

Go to google and type "mismanaged endowment"

Seems there are companies out there stating they can claim back thousands, i am looking into these at the moment...