Endowment Mis-selling - About Providers
About Providers
We believe most policyholders need help to manage their claim against their provider.
The Treasury Select Committee criticised many aspects of
providers' behaviour . In some cases, firms actively discourage
policyholders from complaining.
- The Consumer Association (now Which?) has criticised the
Financial Services Authority (FSA) , accusing it of being 'asleep on the job' and not appropriately penalising companies that break the rules.
- The Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS), which acts as an independent arbiter of fair application of the regulations, has criticised providers behaviour and has reported some providers to the FSA. FOS reported five large firms in December 2004 for not investigating complaints at all and just rejecting them out of hand.
- The FSA has fined 6 major life assurance companies for their failing complaint handling procedures. This was after
writing to the chief executives of the providers twice to warn them to comply with the law. Even now the FSA is still developing initiatives designed to increase compliance by firms.
- The FOS has warned it is stretched by the increasing numbers of complaints and stated it will be unable to function properly if providers continue to break the regulations as they are.
Important note: The FOS is not a consumer
champion. To get a satisfactory claim processed through the FOS,
policyholders need to provide better or more compelling evidence
than the endowment provider has. It is up to the provider to prove they did not mis-sell.
For further information, or to make a claim call us on 0800 280 2000
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