Introduction
The Office of the Policyholder Advocate is led by Clare Spottiswoode, CBE, who is the Policyholder Advocate. She is the first person to hold this position, as the Norwich Union reattribution is the first to be proposed since new FSA rules came into force requiring the appointment of a policyholder representative.
Organisation
The Office is organised on very flexible lines with specialist assistance being drawn in by Clare to meet the needs of various phases of the project. Clare has been doing background research on the insurance industry since being nominated as Policyholder Advocate in February 2006. She was formally appointed on 21 November 2006 and has subsequently stood down from two of her other commitments, most notably as Deputy Chairman of British Energy.
Clare has been able to draw on the advice and assistance of lawyers from Freshfields, the actuarial team from KPMG and the economic and commercial advisers, LECG. These teams will continue to work with Clare as necessary throughout the project and their areas of work are supplemented by other specialists from time to time.
Dr Eileen Marshall assists with general economic analysis and will have a lead role in preparing the final report on the Norwich Union plan, a summary of which will go to all eligible policyholders. Communications and consultation are managed by Jonathan Haslam, who is assisted by Sheree Dodd. They work closely with Jason Mullarkey to provide call centre and administrative facilities to meet the needs of policyholders. Jason is seconded to the office from Norwich Union. Kate Anastasi is the research manager and is responsible for identifying, analysing and writing up key issues relating to the Norwich Union proposal.
Our policyholder consultation has been undertaken by two leading research companies, YouGov and Opinion Leader Research. A series of roadshows was produced by Production Bureau.
Work phases
Norwich Union has decided to move to the next stage of its plan to reattribute two of its with-profits funds and the Office of the Policyholder Advocate is fully engaged in negotiations, drawing on its resources intensively.
The project started in earnest on 21 November 2006 and it has been, and continues to be, extremely busy. It has included consultation with policyholders, a full actuarial analysis of Norwich Union’s 2005 results and beginning the detailed negotiations with Norwich Union. The office is now analysing the 2006 results and is using an economic model developed by LECG. It is expected that negotiation will continue through mid 2008 and when concluded a report on the outcome will begin to be written. The report will be shown to Norwich Union to allow them to comment on any factual mistakes.
The office will be fully engaged in the preparation for the High Court hearing which will consider the plan and the work of the Policyholder Advocate.