Equitable Life Payment Scheme: May 2013 progress report
Published 30 April 2013
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1. Summary of payments made to date
As of 30 April 2013, the scheme has now made payments totalling £604m to 448,897 policyholders. The figures are broken down as follows:
- 350,976 payments to Individual investors have been issued totalling £457m
- 33,032 first payments to With-Profits Annuitants have been issued by the scheme, totalling £65m. Additionally subsequent annual payments totalling £52m have also been made to annuitants
- 64,889 payments have been paid to those who bought their policy through their company pension scheme (known as a Group scheme) have received payments worth £30m
2. Remaining individual policyholders
The scheme has now contacted 85% of individual policyholders to inform them of the value of any payment due. This includes both notification of payment and nil payment. 94% of With-Profits Annuitants have been contacted and 82% of individual investors.
The scheme has also contacted all the policyholders it can who were previously written to in June 2012 to inform them they would receive a payment by April 2013.
The scheme has now contacted all the eligible individual policyholders it can trace.
Any holders of an individual non With-Profits Annuity or With-Profits Annuity who have not been contacted by the scheme should call the scheme on 0300 0200 150 to confirm the eligibility of their policy and be advised of the next steps they should take.
3. Policyholder tracing
The scheme has gone to significant lengths to trace eligible individual policyholders. This includes electronic checking of credit histories, the electoral roll and phone book to verify addresses. The scheme also writes to the last known address of those that have failed those checks to ask that they contact the scheme.
Any holders of an individual non With-Profits Annuity or With-Profits Annuity who have not been contacted by the scheme should call the scheme on 0300 0200 150 to confirm the eligibility of their policy and be advised of the next steps they should take.
4. Group (company pension) schemes
The scheme has made payments totalling £30m to 64,889 Group (company pension) scheme policyholders. The scheme has also written to all traceable trustees or administrators of eligible Group (company pension) schemes to request member data and continues to receive data from them to facilitate payments. Payments will continue over the coming months.
As reported previously, all the traced Group (company pension) schemes have been written to by the scheme, to begin the process of data exchange. However there are also a number of Group (company pension) schemes that the scheme has been unable to locate. The scheme will shortly be publishing a list of those Group (company pension) schemes and encouraging those members to contact the scheme directly to progress their payment.
5. Deceased policyholders
The scheme has made 8,126 payments worth £19m to the estates of deceased policyholders. This represents 36% of the known payments to deceased policyholders.
The process of identifying, tracing and contacting the estates of deceased policyholders continues, and will continue over the coming months. The executors of an eligible policyholder’s estate who have not heard from the scheme, can help the scheme with this process by contacting the scheme directly in writing.
6. Scheme closedown
Whilst payments to annuitants will continue for the duration of their annuities, the scheme will begin the process of closing down and shutting to new claims later this year. In advance of that the scheme will place adverts in national newspapers to encourage those that believe themselves to be due a payment and have not received it to come forward. The scheme will also alert other relevant stakeholders to its closure to ensure that that all reasonable and proportionate efforts are made to locate eligible policyholders. Further detail on the closure of the scheme will be provided in future progress reports.
7. Further reports
The next report will be published in early August and will cover the scheme’s progress in May – July this year.