From Bad To Worse

From Bad To Worse

The endowment policy crisis could be far worse than experts expect.

That is the view of Clive Cowdery, chief executive of Resolution Life. He predicts that the amount of assets held in close funds funds will double to £400BN, in the next five years, as more insurers shut off their funds to new money.

Closed funds do not take in contributions, their only purpose is to pay existing liabilities; in other words they are winding down, as such their returns are lower than open ones.

Cowdery believes that closed funds will account for 15 million policies by 2011.

That will be when the "fun really starts"; as people realise that their funds don't work, and wake up to the fact that they have a debt that they cannot afford to settle.

I would hope that, despite the fact that the life assurance companies are doing their best to sweep the biggest financial scandal of the 20th century under the carpet, people wake up to this disaster a little earlier than that.

Time for the politicians to wake up as well!