Equitable Life

My first pension scheme was with my first serious employer, a small computer consultancy who proclaimed they were "The Future of Computing Technology". A nice company, but if this was the future then computing had no future.

They did not contribute much to their pension scheme I think 1-2% so I resolved to put some money in myself over the 2.5 years I was there. I very conscientiously read all the literature and worked out the predictions and thought it was not a bad investment if it worked out.

Of course this was slighty before 2000, when Equitable were closed to new business because they are insolvent due to promises made to guarantee annuities rates to certain 1960s investors. When they withdrew this they were taken to court by policy holders and lost, which it turn caused the collapse of the society.

What followed was a 10 year farce where the government wriggled and squirmed to avoid paying out any compensation, as the FSA were clearly not on top of the finanical position of the society. For me the high point of this was the statement in the House of Commons by Ruth Kelly (a Labour MP who rose quickly through the Blair ranks) who said there "was no evidence whatsoever of any failure on the part of the FSA".

Well she is in the Lords now for some reason, and today I received my compensation of £400 (scaled back from £1600 to be affordable). I really feel for the people who had an entire working life of pension contributions with these guys.