More and more people are complaining about endowment policies, the Financial Ombudsman Service said. The number of people complaining has been soaring for three years and shows no signs of abating.

A review shows that the service dealt with a 34% rise in complaints in the past year and is now receiving 1,300 new cases a week compared with 300 a week just three years ago.

The FOS resolves disputes between consumers and financial firms and has seen the rapid rise as millions of people are being told they face shortfalls in their mortgages.

Most cases are settled by mediation or recommended settlements, the FOS said. Only 7% of cased required a formal ombudsman decision.

Commenting on the continued high volumes of mortgage endowment disputes being referred to the Financial Ombudsman Service, chief ombudsman, Walter Merricks, said: "We dealt with a record number of mortgage endowment disputes last year. The number we can expect to receive in the current year will largely be determined by how financial services firms meet the new regulatory requirements on so-called "re-projection" letters - several million of which will be sent to consumers with endowment policies over the coming year."

"Most of these letters will warn of likely mortgage shortfalls and many will give, for the first time, an explicit deadline by which any complaint must have been lodged. These letters could result in significant increases in the numbers of consumers contacting their endowment provider - and in sudden bulges in complaint volumes."