I am not sure if I have a case or not or who I should complain to Bldg Society ? or Life Insurance Company? hope you can help ?
I took out a Mortgage with the well known Building society 1982 who where the acting agent for the Life Insurance Company .
The Building society advisor recommended a Life Insurance Company (25yr) Endowment policy which he said would pay back my mortgage plus a guaranteed lump sum of £15000, after taking the advisors advice I was asked to sign the bottom of the document
and the advisor would fill in the rest which I did, I never gave it a second thought.
I now believe the advisor gave unsuitable advice & maladministration, the advisor did not explain the details
regarding the policy which I did not understand what I was buying or the risk I was taking. The policy details where
never explained to myself & all I was asked to do was sign the bottom of the document & he would do the rest.
The Building society advisor / acting agent did not explain it was a share-based investment and that the pay-out was not
guaranteed in fact he told me that it would pay off my mortgage and there would be a guaranteed lump sum of £15000
when the policy matured. I was sold the Life Insurance Company policy (*************) on the understanding that it would definitely pay off the mortgage and provide a surplus (guaranteed) lump sum of £15000.
I am now in a bad situation with regards to my Life Insurance policy as thru the yrs I have missed some premiums due to being out
of work, I did at the time notify all concerned Building society , Life Insurance Company etc etc that I was finding it financially difficult to keep up payments as I was out of work, married 3 kids etc , I was told by the Life Insurance Company advisor not to worry that the policy had built in mechanism
to deal with situation like mine, at no time was it ever explained to me what this was, all I was told was not to worry If
I could make whatever payments I could . It was many yrs later when a IFA called at my door to do a Financial health
check only to discover that what in fact was happening with my Life Insurance Company endowment policy was the missed premiums I had missed had been paid by a loan Life Insurance Company had taking out on my behalf to cover any missed payments this is not what I understood from the Life Insurance Companyadvisor at the time I was under the impression that under this policy any missed payments were covered due to some insurance mechanism within the policy to cover myself if I was unable or out of work, ill health etc etc, at no time was it ever explained to me that this money was actually a loan ? . It now transpires I have missed in
total apprx £1000 in missed premiums & the interest I owe is £4250 plus another £375 still to be added this yr, that works
out at 400%in interest????
Whenever I challenged the Life Insurance Companyon this matter on a number of occasions all they could say was they were sorry but If I wanted, I had the option of either pay off the loan in full or they would except lump some payments of a £1000 at a time, this I found very unfair as I was not In a position to do either, I was not aware of the situation until yrs later when the IFA explained what
had actually been done, I feel due to unsuitable advice & maladministration I now find myself in a very unfair situation in both complaints
Yours Sincerely
keepurear2theground
