Mr T found us via Facebook, he told us that he had been sold a Mortgage Endowment policy when he was young, single, and still living at home with his parents. Mr T further informed us that he had never used the Endowment policy for mortgage purposes and that his later mortgage was in fact on a repayment basis.
Mr T didn’t have any policy information other than he knew it was with Abbey Life and that it had started in 1988 or 1989. This wasn’t going to cause us problems as part of our service is to obtain all the details needed by sending providers information requests prior to making complaints.
Abbey Life responded to our information request after 3 weeks and we were able to see that the Mortgage Endowment had been sold in 1988 and had been in force until 2020. We again spoke to Mr T who again confirmed the policy had never been used in connection with a mortgage. We then used the information to make a detailed letter of complaint to be sent to Abbey Life.
A further week passed before we received a response from Abbey Life that they were now looking into Mr T’s complaint and will do a full investigation.
During their investigation Abbey Life wrote to us requesting some more extra information. They wanted to know various details about the client’s mortgage such as the date of the policy in conjunction with an interest mortgage, The amount of the mortgage, the term of the mortgage and the name of the mortgage lender. This can be very normal for the provider to come back and ask for more information to help with their investigation but on this occasion seemed a little strange as we understood the policy was never used in connection with any mortgage.
On calling Mr T to discuss what Abbey Life had asked for he was as surprised as us by what they were asking. Mr T stated again that his policy was never attached to a mortgage as he was only 18 when he took it out. He didn’t take his mortgage out till years later and it was never linked to the endowment and that his mortgage had been on the repayment basis. We told him we would relay this information back to Abbey Life so we could get to the bottom of what happened with his Endowment.
Abbey Life advised us that on their records it shows that the policy was assigned to Halifax from 1999, we informed the client of this, and he had no idea and was sure it was a repayment mortgage so was going to contact Halifax himself to get this information confirmed. We as a company sent all this in writing to Mr T so he had all the records of what Abbey Life were now saying.
As expected, Halifax confirmed with Mr T that he did indeed have a repayment mortgage and would also be sending him proof of this by post so Mr T could then send this to us and Abbey Life.
A month later Abbey Life sent us an offer of compensation for Mr T. The total compensation was £5,856.32 however when this was checked by our senior claims manager who deals with our Endowment offers, he noticed the interest rate used by Abbey Life on the refund of premiums was incorrect. He immediately called Mr T to advise the offer was incorrect and should not be accepted. Mr T was actually very happy with the amount as he thought it was going to rejected but did agree not accept yet.
An email was sent to Abbey Life very briefly explaining to them that in our opinion they had used an incorrect interest rate whilst calculating the losses and by doing this, they were disadvantaging our mutual client.
A further 6 weeks go by where we have chased Abbey Life for a decision. We finally get their response saying that their calculations are correct, and they have spoken to the Financial Ombudsman Service technical help desk who thought their calculation was also correct. Our senior claims manager took one look at this and knew he had to make a further appeal on this case.
Our senior claims manager compiled a further appeal but this time to be sent to more senior compliance team members at Abbey Life. He expressed our concerns about the way the calculations had been made and reiterated exactly how the calculation should be carried out. He finally gave Abbey Life 2 weeks to respond before we exercised the right of referral to the Financial Ombudsman Service.
We kept Mr T informed of what was going on and why things were taking so long, he was thankful that we were updating him and working on his behalf.
Exactly 14 days later, we received an email from Abbey Life thanking us for our patience and saying they have now received some more information from their Bournemouth offices and are looking into it further so it shouldn’t be much longer till we have an outcome.
A further month went by, but we then received the revised offer of compensation. The calculation had now been carried out using the interest rate that we had suggested. The total amount of the new offer was a staggering £17,412.75 which was £11,556.43 more than the original.
Mr T was totally amazed by this amount but also shocked that Abbey Life had made such an error. Fortunately for Mt T, he had utilised our services and our vast experience in these types of cases.