September Update
Dear Policyholders,
In the next few days with-profits policyholders who are potentially eligible to be included in the Norwich Union reattribution will receive a letter from the company.
The letter deals with the new timetable, which we told you about some weeks ago. In short the process is taking longer than either we or Norwich Union anticipated when we first began, the earliest any payments could be made would be mid-2008. That depends on it being possible to reach an agreement about the size of payment that is fair for giving up the interests and rights you have in the inherited estates of the funds concerned.
We have prepared some additional material including some new questions and answers that you might find interesting. These are presented as pdfs and you can reach them by clicking this link. Norwich Union took the decision that it did not want to include this material with their mailing which is, of course, disappointing.
As you may know a number of policyholders have asked us to give them references to more detailed information about with-profits and inherited estates. Today the FSA Consumer panel has published a report by The Pensions Institute, Cass business School and IFF Research Ltd. It is called ‘Are customers in closed life funds being treated fairly?’ I should like to emphasise that the Norwich Union funds are not closed.
Policyholders might find this research interesting because some of the topics it covers may be of wider interest, such as communications, the uses of inherited estates and governance arrangements including independent with-profits committees. These can be found in the summary of key findings and recommendations, pages 11 to 14. The FSA Consumer Panel’s website is www.fs-cp.org.uk
Yours faithfully,
Jonathan Haslam
Director of Communications.
« return to Articles and Reports