Treating With-Profits Customers Fairly In May 2007, the FSA issued a 48 page Insurance Sector Briefing on with-profits. In this document, the FSA posed some key questions for advisers and pointed out that firms not offering reviews of with-profits policies may not be treating their customers fairly. They stated their desire to work with trade associations on this issue and gave everyone until December 2008 to implement, change or face action. The two key questions raised by the FSA were: "Are you satisfied that where your customers hold with-profits policies, you are treating them fairly in terms of ongoing service or advice that is being provided?" "Are the advisers within your firm in a position to advise customers about the ongoing suitability of their with-profits products? They should take account of how the product has changed since it was originally purchased." Source: FSA May 2007 Insurance Sector Briefing O&M found that hardly anybody had formulated a structured response to the briefing. The trade associations were fully focussed on the RDR and at the end of 2007, seven of the 19 months available for reviews had already elapsed with no real action being taken. Around 2,000 delegates attended the road shows during the spring of 2008. The presentations and follow-up information can be accessed by using the links on the right.

In addition, if you are interested in reviewing with-profits pensions and don't already use Pensions Profiler, one of our Business Development Managers would be able to come to your offices to talk through the O&M content from the road shows and demonstrate how the system can help you meet the December 2008 FSA deadline. For more information please contact our Sales team.

Reviewing With-Profits Policies - The Tools

Presentations - Download or view here

The presentations were broken down into four sections:

• Insurance Sector Briefing
• O&M's Pension Solution
• AEGON's Bond Solution
• O&M's Action Plan

O&M's Action Plan - Download here (This file is large. Please be patient while downloading)

The final part of the road show presentation focussed on the O&M Action Plan. This document has been developed to assist you when reviewing with-profits plans and includes background information, a draft action plan for you company to adopt, review flowcharts, suitability forms, client contact letters and sample website content.

Competency Testing - Access here

To demonstrate consistency and identify areas of where more study or understanding might be required, O&M developed an online test which consists of 25 multiple choice questions. The test should take less than 30 minutes and upon completion, your score will be returned together with clarification of any questions that were incorrectly answered.

If you require any additional information about the road shows or require additional information about how Pensions Profiler can assist your with-profits reviews contact our Sales team.