Synopsis: |
More than 10 years after the collapse of Equitable Life many victims still have not received the compensation they are entitled to. The Treasury focused on an arbitrary target for making the first payments at the expense of proper planning and this has led to unacceptable delays and spiralling costs. By March 2012 just GBP168 million had been paid out to policyholders - a third of the GBP500 million expected. Only 35% of policyholders have received payments despite 72% of the budget being spent. 20% of policyholders - between 200,000 and 236,000 people - might never receive any money at all because the Treasury believes it may be unable to trace them. With less than a year to go before the scheme closes in March 2014, the Treasury still has 664,200 payments worth GBP370 million left to make. Treasury and its administrator, NS&I should do everything possible to find missing policyholders. Unbelievably, Treasury refused to accept the details of 350,000 policyholders from the Equitable Life Members Action Group on the basis of 'data protection issues'. Furthermore the Treasury does not intend to start publicizing the closure of the scheme until September. It should do so now.The service provided to policyholders has also been unacceptably poor. Many have not received the information to understand how their payments have been calculated. NS&I must take action to improve the customer service provided by the contractor, ATOS. Lessons should have been learned from the failure of previous government compensation schemes, such as those for former miners and Icelandic trawlermen |