Equitable Life: further compensation debate

The Equitable Life 'scandal' as an issue has very long historical roots and millions of pounds have been spent on legal action, professional regulatory proceedings, enquiries and reports into what happened, what have people lost as a result, who did what and, crucially, who is to blame. Despite all the elusive efforts to produce one, there does not exist an unchallenged, clear, unique, unambiguous, simple narrative called ‘truth’ acceptable to all parties.

This Paper deals with the route to compensation and not with the causes of Equitable Life’s failures which are dealt with in other documents.

With respect to the compensation issue, even at its most basic level, the calculation of loss and even what is, involves not just arithmetic but almost philosophical consideration too.

The Coalition Government legislation enacted the Equitable Life (Payments) Act 2010 to establish a scheme to pay compensation to qualifying EL members. At a time of extreme financial public sector stringency, £1.5 billion was pledged to compensate them, further sums were added to this later and some welfare benefits for EL claimants were improved on. The compnesation Scheme ended in December 2105.

EMAG has consistently claimed that this was insufficient and as at February 2016 it is calling for another £2.7billion of compensation.