URGENT Endowment shortfall companies? Advice needed

[SOULGIRL]

I took out an endowment in 1992 to pay of my first mortgage of £29,992 - the projected interest rates at the time were 7, 8 and 10.5%.

Now the projected rates im being given are 4, 6 & 8% and (of course) I have a shortfall. I have just realised I only have until 17th June this year to do something.

Im sure loads of you have been in the same position but has ANYONE used a no win no claim company to chase it. I must admit I no longer have that mortgage (new one is repayment)I figure if they are any good and take 25% of the winnings then thats better than the 0% I would get as so far have just taken an ostrich approach and just ignored it!! Im still throwing 39 quid a month at this policy!!!!

Like MrsMuddle, though, our shortfall is pretty small because it was a small mortgage, and we took action years ago to make sure that we covered the likely shortfall. On a bigger mortgage we wouldn't have been able to do that.

I started off using a company but sacked them because they were too slow. Then I did it myself and I won compensation.

This is how I did it. I wrote to the insurance company stating I had a complaint that I was missold an endowment policy because I was told it would pay off my mortgage and it wont. They sent me forms out, I filled them in, in one case the company had changed and I had to write to someone else. It took several months, but I did win in the end. Write the letter, they will send you a form ... then wait. Thats all there is to it.

Thanks

Letter is in the envelope ready to go. Brother is faxing it for me tomorrow too.

Fingers crossed

Good luck SG, I wasn't being negative I just didn't understand what you had been told. I do see now why you have cause for complaint. Endowments were really dodgy and most of them were miss sold. I remember being offered one as late as 1995, for my first mortgage, but I decided on a repayment one. I believe my brother had one, but he had it as a savings scheme so I am not sure if this counted.

Not sure if someone has mentioned this here, but the compensation that you get is the difference between what the endowment mortgage has cost you and what a repayment mortgage would have cost you. You don't get compensated on the projected shortfall.

For example, we got compensation earlier this year, but it was calculated at about £4000, rather than our £40000 shortfall. Our bank offered to cash in our policy for no fees, so we did this and accepted the compensation at the same time. We figured that if we had saved the premium each month, we would have had slightly less than the cashed-in value plus compensation, so overall not too bad.

Just wanted to say thanks to everyone who helped with this. I have received a compensation offer, not enough to retire on but better than nothing - which is what I was anticipating!!

Anyone who is dithering about it go on the Which website NOW & get it underway - it really was quite simple (a little time consuming but worth it)

Just wanted to say THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU Twiglett (and all others who recommended claiming). I took out an Endowment with the Abbey 12 Years Ago and thought I had no hope of getting anything back. I submitted a claim by the deadline (was it 15th June?) and have just received a compensation offer which is very welcome at this particular moment in time. (Spent all yesterday at hospital and have been advised to start maternity leave earlier than was planned).

To any others considering it - I filled out the Which letter; received a rather long form to fill in; completed it to the best of my memory (at the blanks, I stated the information was in files in the loft which I can't access due to being 7 months pg and asked them to refer to their files) and that was it! I was expecting a long drawn out battle but it was just SO EASY.