June Update
Dear Policyholder,
You may have seen that the Financial Services Authority yesterday announced that it was to consult on a proposal that it should no longer be possible for the costs of misselling compensation to be paid from inherited estates. This consultation was promised by the FSA in its letter of 6 December 2007 to Clare following her letter to them questioning a host of uses of inherited estates. You can read the paper by following the link below and beneath that you can see the response that Clare issued to the media. Some media coverage is also shown below.
I have kept links to a number of small articles over recent weeks and these are also part of this update.
As you will see from some of the articles the discussions with Norwich Union continue but both sides have also involved the FSA to undertake some preliminary work on the offer that Norwich Union currently has on the table. We hope that it will not be too many more weeks before we are able to draw matters to a conclusion. We still do not know what that conclusion will be but we maintain our view that we do want policyholders to have an offer made so that you can decide.
I would like to add that Norwich Union and we are very aware that this has taken a long time and we both want to be able to explain ourselves to you as soon as we can.
Yours faithfully,
Jonathan Haslam
director of communications
FSA consultation paper issued 3 June 2008
http://www.fsa.gov.uk/pubs/cp/cp08_11.pdf
Media Release
3 June 2008
Clare Spottiswoode welcomes FSA proposal to ban life companies from using inherited estates for mis-selling compensation
Clare Spottiswoode, policyholder advocate in the proposed Norwich Union reattribution of inherited estates, today said:
'This proposal is a step in the right direction and I hope that the consultation will confirm the need to do away with this provision which allows the erosion of the inherited estate to the detriment of policyholders.
'It is, however, regrettable that the FSA has not seen fit to consult on other uses of the estate which I believe are not in the best interests of policyholders, such as subsidising the capital cost of writing new business or paying shareholders' tax.'
4 June Financial Times http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a96d52b6-31cf-11dd-b77c-0000779fd2ac.html
4 June Times http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/banking_and_finance/article4061196.ece
3 June IFAonline http://www.ifaonline.co.uk/public/showPage.html?page=ifa2006_articleimport&tempPageName=797304
3 June Citywire http://www.citywire.co.uk/personal/-/news/money-property-and-tax/content.aspx?ID=304838
4 June Insurance Daily http://www.insurancedaily.co.uk/2008/06/04/fsa-changes-to-reattribution-rules-could-cost-insurers-millions/
27 May Money Marketing http://www.moneymarketing.co.uk/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=165670&d=340&h=341&f=342
27 May Financial Adviser http://ftadviser.com/FinancialAdviser/Investments/News/article/20080527/d66aa686-2bdc-11dd-bdfc-0015171400aa/NU-rumoured-to-be-close-to-deal-on-reattribution.jsp
27 May Financial Times (general progress note.) http://us.ft.com/ftgateway/.ft?nesuperpagews_id=fto052520081355331489
21 May Evening Standard (a speculative piece which is wide of the mark so far as we are concerned) http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/news/columnists/article.html?in_article_id=441967&in_page_id=19&in_author_id=4
2 May Insurance Daily http://www.insurancedaily.co.uk/2008/05/02/nu-26bn-reattribution-dispute-close-to-resolution/
1 May Timesonline http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/banking_and_finance/article3856668.ece
1 May Financial Times http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6986088c-1717-11dd-bbfc-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check=1
1 May The Independent http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/mps-grill-prudential-and-aviva-on-inherited-estate-818862.html
27 April Mail on Sunday http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/news/columnists/article.html?in_article_id=440838&in_page_id=19&in_author_id=3
28 April Citywire http://www.citywire.co.uk/Adviser/-/news/other/content.aspx?ID=301996
29 April Citywire http://www.citywire.co.uk/adviser/-/features/other/content.aspx?ID=301937
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