Updated 5 April 2012 — Click on headlines for more
Quote of the week
We were forced to sell our home
As two victims of the Equitable Life scandal we endorse Mr Downes' call for proper compensation from the Government.
The effect of the admitted mis–regulation by the Government has been catastrophic on our lives. We worked for and saved for over 50 years and have seen our pensions fall from £5840 pa to £2963 8 years later. This fall of 50% is made worse by rising inflation every year. In 2001 we were forced to sell our Cotswold home...(Read more...)
The APPG meets again 25th April
There are now 115 MP members from all parties. Is yours one of them?. Here's the invite. Why not print it off and send it with a suggestion to your MP that he/she attend on your behalf? There will be a briefing on the defects in the compensation Scheme and its administration, to be given by EMAG's Paul Braithwaite and Paul Weir at 3.30pm in Committee Room 16.
Anger and disappointment
Many of the non–WPA policyholders are expressing shock when they see in black and white a proposed payout of only 22% of their losses, as confirmed by the Treasury's calculations. Even worse, contrary to minister Mark Hoban's repeated assertions, prioritisation of payments has not been to the oldest first — it has been to the easiest policies, with many of the oldest annuitants only now beginning to receive the notification that they had expected to see by last June.
Compensation now flowing ‘thin and fast’
EMAG has recently received a cascade of members confirming they now have their notice of the payments they will be receiving... at last. We now have sufficient case studies that we have been able to pass on (anonymised) to our actuaries to reverse–engineer the Scheme's calculation methodology to check its veracity. We will be reporting soon on that study. Do note that at least the compensation warrants you receive are tax free and need not be declared... (read more)
They've been going slow to get it right!
In a revealing private interrogation in a TreasCom sub–committee the two top Treasury bureaucrats made some frank revelations. They've been going slow to be sure the right people get the money but they hope to have distributed up to £300 million of the authorised £1.5 billion by May and the scheme is costing £45 million to administer... (read more)
Mark Hoban's silence
On 23rd December the Executive of the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) wrote to Mark Hoban seeking for him to reconsider and include the pre–1992 with profits annuitants. As of the end of March they had not received any reply... (read more)
Equitable contemplates a buy–out for its 3.5% GIR guaranteed annual return
The majority of Equitable's with profits policies commenced before 1996, when every with profits policy had an embedded 3.5% annual return. With the new Solvency 2 requirements, the board's investment flexibility is more restricted by increased capital reserving required... (read more)
‘Smoozing Mark Hoban’: Private Eye
Private Eye on 6th April, 2012 (Page 32) contains revelations on ‘schmoozing’ government and senior civil servants.
(Extract)
"Not surprisingly the most schmoozed ministers are those responsible for policy towards financial services, Hoban and commercial secretary Lord Sassoon finding themselves especially well fed with 37 and 42 breakfasts, lunches and dinners respectively, courtesy of the likes of Barclays, Goldman Sachs, the British Bankers Association and the Corporation of London.
The minister's diaries also bulge with meeting with vested interests. In the same period, out of a total 336 meetings, a total of 267 were with companies and their representatives, and only a handful with anybody representing consumers, employees or other more public interests.
The schmoozers make sure the government's civil servants are onside too. The latest registers, are also more than a year old, show permanent secretary Sir Nicholas MacPherson entertained 19 times in three months..."
