Adviser nets client £47,000 compensation for minimal claims fee

The client was a Northumberland-based bathroom fitter. He invested his £41,500 pension using an SVS Securities self-invested personal pension (SIPP). Following advice from BlueInfinitas, he used the SIPP to make high-risk investments.

BlueInfinitas is now in liquidation. As an authorised firm it gave advice on transferring pensions into unregulated, high-risk SIPPs. It lost its regulatory permissions in early 2016. The company is well known to claims management companies (CMCs), and many have a dedicated BlueInfinitas page on their websites.   

The client was referred to Liversidge's firm West Riding Financial Solutions from another IFA, as Liversidge (pictured) has the necessary permissions to carry out claims work on behalf of clients.

Ultimately Liversidge was able to get the client nearly £47,000 in compensation from the Financial Services Compensation Scheme.

Liversidge charged the client £975 for the claims work. He said the fee was much smaller than a typical CMC, and by charging the client a small fee he had saved him potentially tens of thousands of pounds in compensation fees if he had gone elsewhere.

The Castleford IFA said all advisers should offer a similar service, and doing so would help the reputation of financial services.

"I think that every IFA should offer a service like this at the kind of price we charge. We've covered our costs with this, and if people have been done over, I don't see why they should be done over twice," he said.

"What kind of image do we want the financial services industry to have? If clients only experience of an adviser is one who totally screwed them, and then they end up having to deal with a claims manager who screws them again, it's compounding it. Whereas if they're screwed over and then a decent firm makes it right for them at minimal cost, they've got to form a better opinion of the industry."

In the last three years, Liversidge has worked on about six claims cases and won compensation each time.

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• Topics
• Your profession
• Pensions
• SIPP
• BlueInfinitas
• West Riding Financial Solutions
• Financial Services Compensation Scheme
• Castleford IFA
• CMC
• Neil Liversidge