Sir John Chadwick issues Interim Report on Equitable Life
18th August
Further to representations to Sir John and his further analysis since he issued his proposals document on 16 June 2009, Sir John has today issued an Interim Report, alongside a report containing those representations. Comments on the Interim Report should be sent to Sir John by 2 October 2009.
Sir John Chadwick has today issued an interim report "Equitable Life ex-gratia payment scheme: Interim Report" that sets out:
- An approach for assessing relative loss, so that an ex gratia payment scheme can be delivered fairly, quickly and placing minimal burden on policyholders;
- The definitive questions he believes need to addressed; and
- The principles he proposes to adopt to determine the appropriate proportion of losses to apportion to the public bodies.
Those wishing to make representations on Sir John's approach or to answer the questions he feels he may need to answer should send written comments to him by Friday 2 October 2009.
Sir John's interim report develops proposals in his document of June 2009. Sir John has received a number of representations on those proposals, including from Equitable Life, the Government, the Equitable Life Trapped Annuitants group and a range of individual policyholders. Sir John has been in talks with these interested parties and in contact with the Parliamentary Ombudsman. Key material between these parties and Sir John is published alongside his interim report ("Equitable Life ex-gratia payment scheme: representations and correspondence regarding my proposals document of June 2009").
Running concurrently with this work, Towers Perrin, the appointed actuarial advisors to Sir John, are in the process of reviewing and analysing the more than one and a half million policies that have been provided by Equitable Life and which are relevant to Sir John's work.
Sir John will review all representations he receives while his team continue its further detailed analysis of the policyholder records. He intends to issue his next update in the autumn.