Equitable Life WP fund - any other policy holders out there?

C

ClubMan

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If so do you know
  1. Why they have never written to Irish policyholders in recent years apprising them of changes in the Irish WP MVA? Note that [broken link removed] that the MVA is 8% but this is the UK WP MVA. The Irish WP MVA is currently 10% but the last time the wrote to policyholders [broken link removed] announcing that the MVA had gone from 18% to 24%, 11% to 17% or 6% to 12% depending on what sort of policy was held. They have never written to policyholders since then to announce changes to the Irish WP MVA.
  2. Why they have not included details of the bonus declarations and other general information relating to the Irish WP fund in their annual statements and reports - they only ever cover the UK fund details and Irish policyholders are easily mislead into thinking that these apply to their funds.
  3. If/how the might affect Irish WP policyholders (non annuitants) as the letters that they sent about this last week don't make it clear at all.
For what it's worth items 1 and 2 among other issues are the subject of a complaint about EL that I made a while ago to the [broken link removed] and I am awaiting feedback on this.
 
Just to follow up on this. The FSO have ruled on my complaint and while they did not uphold my compaint in relation to item 2 above (saying that while the information about status/bonus rates/MVA rates etc. on the Irish WP fund was not readily available in annual statements/reports or on their website EL do give it out on request by individual Irish WP policyholders) they did uphold my complaint in relation to item 1 and have awarded financial compensation to me due to the hassle caused by EL misinforming me about the MVA that actually applied to the Irish WP fund. The financial compensation represents about one third of the money attributable to the 6% difference between the originally (incorrectly) stated 4% MVA and the actual 10% MVA that does apply to the Irish WP fund. I am surprised that they did not take a dimmer view on item 2 to be honest. I am tempted to appeal the decision on the basis of this but will probably just take the money, quit EL (at the cost of 10% MVA on my WP fund) and switch to unit linked with another provider and put an end to this sorry saga...
 
Congratulations on your victory - great to see someone prepared to follow through on a complaint.
 
Sorry - just to clarify ... on reading the FSO's letter in detail it is clearly stated that they did not uphold my complaint regarding item 2 but it is not so clear whether or not they upheld my complaint regarding item 1. I think that they did not since what I was requesting was that the originally notified MVA of 4% be applied. However regardless of this they have awarded compensation for inconvenience caused. The report from the FSO ends with "Complaint not upheld - customer service award" which is a bit arcane to me but which I guess means that they have no upheld my substantive complaints but have awarded compensation on related grounds.
 
Noted, but I still consider it a victory on the grounds that you have got more than the majority who didn't complain.
 
I also complained to IFSRA about the wider issue of Irish EL WP policyholders receiving misinformation (namely UK WP bonus and MVA rates which are not applicable to the Irish WP fund) in their annual reports and statements etc. This is obviously misleading to such policyholders and seriously detrimental to their ability to effectively manage their EL WP pension and non pension investments. While IFSRA have said that they have passed this complaint onto their Consumer Protection and Codes department they also quoted the usual legalese basically saying that I need not expect to hear back from them on this matter.
The Financial Regulator is restricted from disclosing information under S.33AK of the Central Bank Act, 1942 (as amended by the Central Bank and Financial Services Authority of Ireland Act, 2003).
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Seems like a waste of time to expect IFSRA to actually do something worthwhile to protect consumer interests on personal finance matters and to keep the complainant informed...
 
For the benefit of anybody else who might be interested EL have just informed me that the currently prevailing MVA on Irish WP funds is 6%.
 
The FSO ruled on the matter and granted me compensation on July 25th. The decision became binding soon after that as per the FSO complaints process. The FSO would have sent EL the ruling and some letters thereafter. EL have still not paid up. This morning an FSO letter informs me that EL claim that they never received the original ruling so now the FSO have to send it to them again. They did not say if EL will once again have a certain period thereafter to object. This process started c. January this year and is still not resolved. I think the FSO have done their best on it but it's a ridiculously long drawn out process and I can only assume that EL are playing silly buggers over a relatively small amount to them. :mad:
 
Hi Clubman,

I have had a with profits fund with EL since 1997 - frozen since 2000

I notice that the transfer value at the end of Dec 2006 was higher than the notional value. In the previous years 2002-2005, the transfer value was lower than the notional value.

How does the Irish with profits MVA relate to transfer value? Is it already factored into the trasnsfer value?
I presume that the statements that EL was sending to Irish investors were correct and that the misleading information is on their website and general correspondence sent to us - is that correct?

Is there an organisation in Ireland for Equitable Life investors? I believe there are 50,000 of us.


Neil
 
EL have still not paid up so I have had to contact the FSO yet again asking them if/how this matter can be escalated/expedited. The whole process started 11 months ago!
 
I have no idea - even after they "simplified" the statements I could not understand the WP stuff to be honest. At least, other than trying to get them to pay the compensation mentioned above, I thankfully no longer have any dealings with them myself.
I presume that the statements that EL was sending to Irish investors were correct and that the misleading information is on their website and general correspondence sent to us - is that correct?
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No - the correspondence was also incorrect as it only ever (at least in recent years) mentioned UK MVAs, bonus rates etc. without any qualification that these were not relevant to the Irish WP funds. I presume that actual statement values were correct but don't know for sure.
Is there an organisation in Ireland for Equitable Life investors? I believe there are 50,000 of us.
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I only ever heard of the UK (?) EMAG. I think that there may have been some effort to set up an Irish equivalent a while back but have no idea what, if anything, happened on that front.
 
Just to update this thread - last week I finally received payment from Equitable Life of the compensation granted by the FSO in this matter. Only took c. 11 months all told! To be fair to the FSO they were attentive and helpful at all times.
 
Thanks. As I mentioned above it was serendipitous that while the complaints process dragged on so long the EL MVA actually fell from 10% to 6% by the time I actually moved my pension fund away from them. So the difference between the MVA that actually applied to my transfer in the end (6%) and that originally misquoted to me (4%) was probably about the same as the compensation awarded by the FSO.
 
The Irish Times and Irish Independent say there are 6500 to 8000 Equitable Life Victims in Ireland. HM Govt recently partly accepted it's Parliamentry Ombudsman report and has appointed a retired High Court Judge to consider compensation, based only on the parts of the Report which HMG accepted. More on discussion bosrd at www.fool.co.uk or . See Westminister debate live at 11am 27/1/09 on Parliament Live Web Site and also PASC meeting at 10am 29/1/09 (EMAG will be there).

HMGovt has not acted on the EU recommendation that compensation be paid to Equitable victims.

I hope the Irish victims are not forgotten. EMAG does not seem to represent them.

(I contributed to Equitable With Profits Pension in the U.K. and, as an annuitant, was transferred to Canada Life by Equitable, withouit any choice.)
 
Hi Dave

A friend of mine asked me if he qualified and I suggested that he contact the Equitable Life directly. This is the correspondence from the last few days


and their reply
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