Question
I watched a programme about you some time ago and have also seen on your website that people can claim back trail commission that they have paid (claim back through a broker). I have four endowment policies, one life assurance, one pension plan. I have approached two of the companies listed on your website, they both say that previous money cannot be claimed back only future fees can be reduced. Please can you explain what I have obviously misunderstood? Thank you
I have had these policies since 1994. The endowments are for £57,000, £5,000, £5,000, £19,200, life assurance £19,200. I am currently waiting for Abbey National (Santander) to tell me how much I have paid in commission for my Friends Provident polices (I changed to a repayment mortgage but kept the endowment policies going). The pension is with Standard life and the commission has been charged by the firm of accountants that did accountancy work for the firm I worked for at the time to offset against the firms bill.Answer
I'm afraid you can only reclaim future trail commission payments, not past.
If these policies pay trail commission, chances are the financial adviser who sold them to you will have pocketed the money to date. Because the companies with whom the policies are held can't reclaim this money from the financial adviser, there's no practical way for them to refund the commission already paid out to you. And even if this was allowed, it would get very messy - advisers who do provide a genuine service in return for the commission could lose out if the money they've earned is retrospectively reclaimed.
However, better late than never. At least by using a discount broker now you'll get a good share of any commission paid in future.
When using a discount broker for these types of policy it's important to be clear whether the trail commission will be put back into your policies or paid out. If the latter, make sure there's no small print whereby the discount broker keeps some of this money to cover 'admin' costs. For example, while Massow's Paymemy service generally looks an attractive deal when commission can be rebated back into policies, admin fees make it far less attractive when commission has to be paid out.
There's also a question mark over whether commission payments relating to a pension policy can be paid out under HMRC rules - as it might technically be seen as paying out pension benefits (which are not allowed until at least age 55). While the notion seems a bit daft and views on this vary, it's generally safer to get pension trail commission rebated back into the policy wherever possible.
Hope this helps.
I watched a programme about you some time ago and have also seen on your website that people can claim back trail commission that they have paid (claim back through a broker). I have four endowment policies, one life assurance, one pension plan. I have approached two of the companies listed on your website, they both say that previous money cannot be claimed back only future fees can be reduced. Please can you explain what I have obviously misunderstood? Thank you
I have had these policies since 1994. The endowments are for £57,000, £5,000, £5,000, £19,200, life assurance £19,200. I am currently waiting for Abbey National (Santander) to tell me how much I have paid in commission for my Friends Provident polices (I changed to a repayment mortgage but kept the endowment policies going). The pension is with Standard life and the commission has been charged by the firm of accountants that did accountancy work for the firm I worked for at the time to offset against the firms bill.Answer
I'm afraid you can only reclaim future trail commission payments, not past.
If these policies pay trail commission, chances are the financial adviser who sold them to you will have pocketed the money to date. Because the companies with whom the policies are held can't reclaim this money from the financial adviser, there's no practical way for them to refund the commission already paid out to you. And even if this was allowed, it would get very messy - advisers who do provide a genuine service in return for the commission could lose out if the money they've earned is retrospectively reclaimed.
However, better late than never. At least by using a discount broker now you'll get a good share of any commission paid in future.
When using a discount broker for these types of policy it's important to be clear whether the trail commission will be put back into your policies or paid out. If the latter, make sure there's no small print whereby the discount broker keeps some of this money to cover 'admin' costs. For example, while Massow's Paymemy service generally looks an attractive deal when commission can be rebated back into policies, admin fees make it far less attractive when commission has to be paid out.
There's also a question mark over whether commission payments relating to a pension policy can be paid out under HMRC rules - as it might technically be seen as paying out pension benefits (which are not allowed until at least age 55). While the notion seems a bit daft and views on this vary, it's generally safer to get pension trail commission rebated back into the policy wherever possible.
Hope this helps.
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