Back in early 1999, Equitable Life went to court attempting to gain approval to enforce bonus cuts on policyholders. Equitable Life was dealt the most extreme of blows when the House of Lords upheld the decision to refuse its request; a year after it had actually won the first stage of court proceedings.

BBC had quoted the cost of losing at a whopping £1.5 billion, leaving Equitable Life in a desperate situation where sale was the only feasible option. Shortly afterwards, policyholders found out that with-profits policies would not receive any growth for seven months, new business would be stopped and the penalty for withdrawal would increase. Chaos at Equitable Life ensued, and 9 years later policyholders are still fighting tooth and nail for some kind of compensation.

But there is some positive news for those on the receiving end of the scandal. ThisIsMoney has stated today that the government will draft plans to compensate “disproportionately affected” policyholders within 14 days of receiving the report from former Appeals Court judge Sir John Chadwick. The report ’should’ be complete in May, but there was no word on how soon those entitled to compensation would start to see payments. Limited progress, but progress nonetheless.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 24th, 2010 at 4:41 pm and is filed under Life Insurance, Retirement, Savings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.