The Endowment Diary

The Rotten Core at The Heart of Britain's Financial System

The following is an extract of an article published yesterday on "In Your Face", the article is entitled "The Rotten Core at The Heart of Britain's Financial System".

"The endowment mis-selling scandal, of the late eighties and nineties, readily springs to mind as one of the major failings of our financial system. As has been well documented, the life assurance companies used the bull market to create a totally unsuitable, and useless product, that they aggressively sold in the manner of TV sets and washing machines to over 8 million unsuspecting home owners.

The theory being that the bull market would create high yield returns on this product; that would not just pay off the mortgages of the hapless holders, but would also give rise to a modest surplus. Needless to say, what the life assurance companies did not bother to clearly tell people was that their commission charges would rob the product of much of its initial value, and that their projections for growth were totally unrealistic.

It now turns out that the 8 million holders, of these white elephants, are facing shortfalls of over £40BN. Although, in theory the policyholders can try to claim compensation, the life assurance companies are using every excuse in the book to slow the process down in order to avoid paying compensation. To date a paltry £1BN has been paid to those seeking redress.

The FSA, although they offer some fall back position for those refused compensation by the life assurance companies, do not have any intention of ?rocking the boat? too hard. The FSA refuse to acknowledge the fact that the life assurance companies perpetrated the greatest financial scandal in the UK in living memory."

To read the full article visit "In Your Face", and click on the document entitled "The Rotten Core at The Heart of Britain's Financial System".