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<\/p>\nA quarter of a century after Equitable Life collapsed owing \u00a34.1billion to policyholders, victims say they are still waiting for full compensation.<\/p>\n
The mutual life assurance firm, founded in 1762, was once entrusted with more than \u00a330billion in savers\u2019 money.<\/p>\n
Equitable Life closed in December 2000 after being unable to meet guaranteed bonus payments on pension products.<\/p>\n
Its failure triggered years of investigations into regulatory failures and Government oversight.<\/p>\n
In 2010, then-chancellor George Osborne announced a \u00a31.5billion compensation scheme for affected policyholders.<\/p>\n
At the time, Mr Osborne said: “A balance had to be struck between being fair to policyholders and fair to taxpayers.”<\/p>\n
The Parliamentary Ombudsman had concluded that savers had suffered losses of \u00a34.1billion.<\/p>\n
The compensation package therefore covered only around one third of the total losses identified.<\/p>\n
Susan Wood, 78, from Sheffield, said she invested as much as she could afford in Equitable Life because of its reputation.<\/p>\n
“Everybody knew about Equitable Life. It was respectable, it was beloved by the middle classes.”<\/p>\n
She said she lost about \u00a323,000 when the company collapsed.<\/p>\n
A quarter of a century after Equitable Life collapsed owing \u00a34.1billion to policyholders<\/p>\n
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GETTY\/EMAG<\/p>\n
Adjusted for inflation, that figure would be worth more than \u00a344,000 today.<\/p>\n
Ms Wood said she had been advised to consolidate her savings into with-profits annuities.<\/p>\n
“What he was suggesting sounded seductive, so I did it, and within weeks the company had started to fold,” she explained.<\/p>\n
She said she had been building up her pension after divorcing in her fifties while working as a self-employed businesswoman, and the resulting length of time taken to resolve the issue has been deeply frustrating.<\/p>\n
She said: “I’m sure they’re waiting for us to die.<\/p>\n
“It seems to take at least 20 years, if not more, for any action.”<\/p>\n
Terence Grantham, 94, a former bookbinder from Lincolnshire, said he also suffered major losses.<\/p>\n
![\"EMAG\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/emag.jpg\")
EMAG protestors demand proper compensation<\/p>\n
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EMAG<\/p>\n
Mr Grantham said he sought professional advice after running his own business for more than five decades.<\/p>\n
“I had an interview with a chap from Equitable Life who made everything sound as though it was God’s answer to what I wanted.”<\/p>\n
He said he was initially offered a withdrawal rate of 15 per cent from his lump sum.<\/p>\n
Mr Grantham later agreed to a withdrawal rate of seven per cent, which was expected to deliver an income of about \u00a3400 a month.<\/p>\n
Adjusted for inflation, that would now be worth more than \u00a3760 a month.<\/p>\n
Under the Government\u2019s compensation arrangements, Mr Grantham currently receives about \u00a3190 per month.<\/p>\n
Mr Grantham said: “It became a Ponzi scheme,” he said: “offering so much to get people in, just to pay off the other policyholders.”<\/p>\n
He added: “We can manage but the niggle is that over the years we seem worse off.”<\/p>\n
Brian Raper, 84, from near Skipton in North Yorkshire, said he received confirmation of his losses in 2012.<\/p>\n
A former textile manufacturing worker, held two Equitable Life policies, official documentation showed his losses totalled \u00a389,815.<\/p>\n
His compensation payment amounted to \u00a320,118.<\/p>\n
The letter stated: “To meet affordability constraints, payments have been set at a 22.4 per cent proportion of the relative loss.”<\/p>\n
Mr Raper said the outcome affected his plans for retirement.<\/p>\n
“We couldn’t do some of the things we wanted to.”<\/p>\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/the-treasury.png\")
Up to 100,000 policyholders could not be traced to receive one-off payments<\/p>\n
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“When you’ve finished work, you’re expecting to be able to use some of the savings you’ve made.”<\/p>\n
He criticised the level of compensation provided, saying: “Publicly acknowledged debts to individual citizens can and should always be settled both speedily as a matter of policy, and without questions of affordability.<\/p>\n
“To pay less than a quarter of the debt is really an insult.”<\/p>\n
The Equitable Members Action Group has examined Government documents and freedom of information responses.<\/p>\n
The group said payments to with-profits annuity holders were about \u00a354million lower than projected in 2022 to 2023.<\/p>\n
It said around 100,000 policyholders could not be traced to receive one-off payments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A quarter of a century after Equitable Life collapsed owing \u00a34.1billion to policyholders, victims say they are still…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":332029,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[84,4176,2222,4178,4174,4175,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-332028","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-finance","10":"tag-money","11":"tag-pensions","12":"tag-personal-finance","13":"tag-personalfinance","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom","16":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=332028"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332028\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/332029"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=332028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=332028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=332028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}