Gold Star wins no stars for theft claim

We went to Peru and Bolivia last September and bought Gold Star insurance with GE Financial for £152. On our final day in Lima, we were robbed at knifepoint, losing our passports, money, credit cards, immigration papers and all possessions not packed in our suitcases. After delays and lost letters, we were told we would get 50 per cent of the amount we were claiming.

For a gold chain, valued at £350, they paid £175. They valued at £75 a camera costing £300 seven years ago. They paid only half the replacement cost of a pair of spectacles and waterproof clothing. This traumatic end to our holiday has cost us £620.
MW, Hexham

Travel policies do not pay out the cost of buying replacement items but only the second-hand value of anything you lose. So inevitably anything lost or stolen will cost you money.

Even so, GE Financial has checked your claim and found that it made a mistake with the gold chain, failing to treat it as a valuable. There is a £300 ceiling on paying out for valuables so you still will not get the full £350 it is worth, but GE is sending you another £125.

The company says that you could have requested a reassessment of your claim, but I doubt if that was made clear. And, if you could have given the dates when you bought the other items, showing that they were less than a year old, they would not have deducted so much. As you were not able to provide dates, they assumed that the items were one to two years old.

Can I move free-standing AVC into a stakeholder?

I have a free-standing Additional Voluntary
Contribution (AVC) pension along with
membership of a final- salary scheme.

Can I transfer the freestanding AVC into a
stakeholder pension, which I presume would
mean lower charges? What, if any, other options
do I have on this?
CG, Bristol

You are legally entitled to switch any
free-standing AVC into a different type of pension,
if the new pension is able to accept it.

Any stakeholder pension will do. Check before
taking action, though: you will not automatically
save money. Stakeholder pensions can charge no
more than 1 per cent a year, but charges on many
other pensions have fallen in response, so they,
too, charge about 1 per cent.

You might be able to switch it into your company
scheme.

When Ulster is a province too far

A job change required me to move from Cambridgeshire to Northern Ireland. I could not remortgage with my lender, Lloyds TSB, because it does not offer mortgages in Northern Ireland, so I had to pay an early redemption charge.

This geographical exclusion was not made clear in the mortgage agreement. The Financial Ombudsman ruled that the bank could exercise its commercial judgment to choose where it offers mortgages because of a clause in the agreement which says it will make a new loan 'only if we are satisfied with the new property'.

To me, 'new property' means bricks and mortar, not a geographical area.
IG, Bangor

Lenders can choose where they operate but probably few customers understand that 'lends in Great Britain' means they do not lend in Northern Ireland, and there is no reason why a bank should highlight this when granting a mortgage to someone in England.

Many small building soci eties only take business close to home but nearly all the large banks and building societies lend in Northern Ireland or are associated with a bank that does.

The exceptions are Lloyds TSB and Northern Rock. Northern Rock says it is a question of resources, as mortgages require more work than savings accounts.

It is bad luck that you chose a Great Britain-only lender but banks are entitled to choose where they lend. This makes the excuse you were given sound odd.

I, too, would assume that being able to refuse a mortgage unless the lender was 'satisfied with the new property' referred to the structure of the building rather than its location.

A Northern Ireland reader from Newtonabbey has pointed out that no home income plans are sold in the province. One provider, Norwich Union, says it is trying to move into the region but has a problem meeting customers' requirements for, above all, taking no risk of negative equity.

The third-party that provides Norwich Union's 'no negative equity' guarantee found the property market in Northern Ireland signifi cantly different from the UK mainland and cannot provide that guarantee.

Taxman sends an unhappy return

I submitted my tax self-assessment form for 2001/02 online last August. Almost immediately I got back a down-loadable copy of my return and an assessment of my tax position showing that I had overpaid.

Last month, to my horror and distress, I received by post a penalty notice for £100 for failing to submit my return before the deadline. Phone calls to my tax office and the Revenue's e-business helpline produced little except that my submission was not on file. So how had they managed to do an assessment?
JB, Nuneaton

Something has gone wrong. Soon after pressing the key to send your tax return to the taxman, you should have received by email an acknowledgement saying your assessment had been logged and accepted. You should print this and keep it. This is separate from the copy of your tax return and your assessment, although it was reasonable to assume they acknowledged that your return had been safely received.

Your return obviously did arrive because you received an assessment, but maybe some computer mistake meant the information was not permanently logged.

Fortunately, you kept a printed copy of the return and calculation so you have been able to lodge an appeal against the £100 penalty. You should contact the Helpline on 0845 605 5999. Give your reference number and they can check your situation.

What's the magic of 2005/2006?

I opened a cash Isa with Safeway. The booklet says: 'During each tax year until tax year 2005 to 2006, you can save up to £3,000 in your Safeway Isa without paying any tax on the interest you earn.'

Bu what is so special about the year 2005 to 2006?
MS, Manchester

That is the financial year when the current limits on Isa investment end. This could change when we hear Wednesday's Budget but, to date, the Isa rules say that in every tax year until 2005-06, you can put up to £7,000 a year into maxi Isas, with a maximum of £3,000 in a cash Isa.

From 2006-07, the overall limit will be £5,000 a year and £1,000 for cash Isas. There is a tax change to Isas but this takes place from April 2004 when Isa-holders will no longer get tax credits on dividends from UK companies, worth 10 per cent of the dividend.

· Email Margaret Dibben at money.writes@observer.co.uk or write to Margaret Dibben, Money Writes, The Observer, 119 Farringdon Road, London EC1R 3ER. Include a telephone number, but not SAEs or original documents. Letters are selected for publication and we cannot give personal replies. The paper accepts no legal responsibility for advice.