How is it that these rotters can take away maturity bonuses on policies that are for fewer than 25 years mines 20/

Have always had some form of savings, but this one takes the biscuit its made a difference of over £5k.

Has anyone ever taken the rogues to court for mis-sold policy ?

Hello there. Can you tell us exactly what you've been told please? Is it a maturity bonus or a terminal bonus that has changed, for example?

HB

If you are talking about an endowment policy then the answer is YES, people have taken Insurance Companies to Court.

It all depends on how you were sold the policy, some agents/representatives were guilty of mis-selling these policies and guaranteed the maturity bonus based on past performance.

When it looked like your policy was not going to achieve the forecasted bonus you should have received RED letters from your insurers advising you of this and also your right to complain.

There are time limits for complaints to be regsistered in, but equally there were strict rules about informing policyholders.

Can you give us some more information on exactly what type of policy you had/have and what you were told

Mossy

Nice to see you Mossy. Are you back with us? I think a million caggers will be very pleased to hear that.

New me, please tell us what you have in writing, Mossy and I will do our best to help.

My best, HB

Nice to see you Mossy. Are you back with us? I think a million caggers will be very pleased to hear that.

 

New me, please tell us what you have in writing, Mossy and I will do our best to help.

 

My best, HB

Yeah I'm back 8-)

(But I think this is more your area than mine)

Mossy

We'll see, I may end up not knowing the answer.

New me, do you have anything for us?

HB

I love these forums, everyone is so knowledgeable.

Precis on the problem

Our joint life insurance matured on 1st April this year and I was assigned it in the divorce settlement.

We were sold it in 1989 by our Agent who came with his manager to see my ex and I in our home. We had some small policies taken out over time and decided to take out the 20 year endowment with profits. Oh they showed us various tables with different rates of interest and told us about the maturity bonus.

Because of the divorce lots of things went wong with the policy like they "lost my address" 3 times and made the policy paid up withoug my knowledge. I had to SAR them to get all the details because I had so many different stories.

It all comes down to how you were sold this policy, in recent years a lot of people complained because the agent/representative who sold the policy used examples of past performance to guarantee the maturity or terminal bonus, if you were led to believe that it would pay out a guaranteed sum then you have a case.

Don't build your hopes up when I say you have a case, you will have a fight on your hands.

The next thing you need to establish is if your claim is now time barred, insurance companies were given strict deadlines to inform all policyholders whose policies looked like it would not achieve the forecasted payout, and likewise policyholders who thought they had being mis-sold a policy had strict deadlines in which to register a claim. Anything outside this limit is time barred.

The insurers had a duty to write RED letters, basically they had to make the warning prominant and in red so it stood out, and they also had a further duty to write to policyholders advising them that the time barred limit was only 6 months away (at the appopriate time).

So the next question for you is did you receive any RED letters, and can you expand/elaborate on your statement that they 'lost' your address.

Mossy

Hello again. I agree with Mossy.

Have you kept all your own paperwork on this policy and do you have anything in writing to say the additional maturity bonus was guaranteed? In my day, they never were and the illustration was meant to show that.

They may ask why you didn't realise premiums were unpaid, so it might be could to have your answer ready.

HB

 

Have you kept all your own paperwork on this policy and do you have anything in writing to say the additional maturity bonus was guaranteed? In my day, they never were and the illustration was meant to show that.

 

That's the crux of the arguments, the fact that maturity bonuses were NOT guaranteed and illustrations were simply showing how they had performed in past years, but quite a lot of agents used them wrongly and led the customer to believe that the illustrations were what they would get at maturity.

Mossy