Greed

Greed

Mortgage advisers have blamed policyholder greed for the endowment policy disgrace.

Fairinvestment.co.uk conducted a study that showed that 87% of people believed that they were mis-sold policies by brokers, who failed to explain in sufficient detail the possible shortfalls.

However, some advisers have taken umbrage at this slur and claim that a combination of personal greed and changing market conditions have contributed to the failure of these policies.

Alan Townley, of Dave Alan Financial Services, is quoted:

"Let's make no mistake, people are greedy and although you can spell out that past performance does not equate to future performance it tends to fall on deaf ears when they can only see pound signs in front of them."

I believe that a more fundamental problem is to blame, quite simply many of the policies are not fit for purpose. They were designed to pay off the mortgage, yet are manifestly failing to do so.

When a newly purchased TV or car fails to function, the owner can claim redress; so it should be for the policy holders of these poorly designed and badly managed products.

Blaming market conditions and greed is an easy excuse, the real blame lies with a lousy design and excess management charges (for precious little quality management).

The costs for this scandal should be met by the companies that run these underperforming products.