Mrs J contacted It IS Your Money about a pension she was paying into alongside her Teachers Pension. After talking to our experienced team, it was quickly established that Mrs J had been advised by Teachers Assurance to pay into a Free Standing Additional Voluntary Contribution (FSAVC) plan to supplement her superannuation scheme. Our expert team explained Mrs J could have been subject to poor financial advice, as in a high number of cases FSAVC’s were not the most effective way of supplementing a company pension. This is because in many cases FSAVCs have much higher annual management charges. We subsequently sent out our claim forms, All Mrs J had to do at this stage was to sign and return them.
We believed that the FSAVC Mrs J was sold was not the most suitable product for her circumstances. Mrs J was not given information on all the options available to her and therefore was not able to make an informed decision. We also highlighted the fact that the adviser failed to establish the client’s attitude towards risk correctly or accurately.
During our investigation we also discovered that Mrs J was advised in 1991 by Teachers Assurance to start paying into a FSAVC, she was later advised to increase her contributions on two occasions before retiring due to unforeseen circumstances in 1997.
After many months where both It IS Your Money Ltd and Teachers Assurance gathered information, Teachers Assurance made an offer of compensation of £447. We did not agree with the calculation and immediately contacted teachers Assurance. We highlighted a very small but important element within the calculation that both Teachers Assurance and their Actuaries had simply overlooked.
After highlighting this to Teachers Assurance and explaining to them their calculation would not put Mrs J back in the position she would be in if she had received the correct advice, they agreed to carry out a new calculation. Mrs J was extremely glad we challenged Teachers Assurance on this matter as it later resulted in an offer of compensation of more than £30,000.
Our Claims Manager noticed this small issue because of the vast experience we have with these claims. Without this expertise or experience, Mrs J would have been left severely out of pocket.
If you were advised to top up your teachers pension with an additional pension plan click the link below to see if you may have been affected too!