Back in the mid-1980s, I took out an endowment policy. There, I said it. Perhaps making financial mistakes of this magnitude provides ample qualification for my subsequent career as a financial adviser of some sort.Perhaps not.

But my excuses are that I was a lot younger and it was, back then, the standard way of obtaining a mortgage. That policy is now projected to pay out just under half the figure quoted to me by the smiling salesman all those years ago. I should have known better.

Many people in the UK believe they were "mis-sold" their endowment policies. Indeed, there are many other saving and investment products that were similarly sold under false pretences. But proving it is a tough task.

Getting any money back is even harder. To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure that I am entitled to be compensated for my own stupidity, no matter what the salesman said.

What went wrong with these products? Essentially, they were crushed by the weight of three forces. First, inflation fell dramatically, exposing the myth of "high" returns: much of the past performance of these products is made up of illusory inflation-based gains. Second, the great equity bear-market of 2000-2002 found many savings vehicles hopelessly over-exposed to stock markets. Third, the fees charged by the many layers of intermediaries erode a large part of any returns on the investment.

Like every other endowment policyholder, I am due shortly to receive a letter telling me how my funds did in 2003. Given the very strong performance by stock markets around the world I might be forgiven for expecting some pleasant numbers. Indeed, I expect many of my long-suffering fellow policyholders are breathing slightly easier in the full knowledge that when markets perform, these policies are supposed to do well.

Sadly, most of us are in for another crushing disappointment. The bizarre way in which the insurance industry is still conducting its management of endowment funds means that many policyholders will again see reduced bonuses; a lot of people will, in fact, get zero returns on their policies. I am quite sure that many insurance companies would, if they could, take money back from their clients if the rules allowed: negative returns would be here if only the small print permitted it.

To a certain extent, the industry has cleaned up its act, via the simple expedient of not selling any more new endowment policies. But this has not been adopted universally. There are still too many products, endowment and otherwise, that still contain one of the same basic flaws outlined above; fees are still too high.

The British government, to its credit, has tried to do something about this by telling the savings industry to cap its fees on certain products. The response by many in the business has been to say that they can't make money at the government-imposed fee levels so they won't offer the products. Just why they can't make money is a moot point.

So what is the individual saver to do? One possibility is to do it yourself. Make your own investment decisions and keep your costs down by using discount brokers. But for many, this is not a practical option.

If people are willing to pay somebody else for managing their savings, they are going to have to be a lot more savvy about manager selection. That will mean spending more time and doing more research on just who is taking care of your cash and establishing exactly how much they are going to charge.

These comments apply with equal force to the pensions industry. This still looks like a business stuck in the Stone Age. Change is inevitable, if only because of the incredible resistance to change that is built into the system.

The end investor has even less knowledge of what is happening to his money than the endowment holder. And it is information that is key. The industry wants to keep the investor in the dark as much as possible. The role of the Government must be to force as much light onto the situation as possible. At the very least, fees must be disclosed. But once this Pandora's Box is opened, real change will be inevitable. Once we know what we are being charged, we will refuse to pay it.