Author : Equitable Life Inquiry
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9780102926880
Total Pages : 817 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (268 download)
Book Synopsis Report of the Equitable Life Inquiry by : Equitable Life Inquiry
Download or read book Report of the Equitable Life Inquiry written by Equitable Life Inquiry and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 817 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the report of the investigation by Lord Penrose into the financial crisis at the life assurance company, Equitable Life, the world's oldest mutual life insurer. The company's problems were revealed when it emerged it had insufficient funds to honour Guaranteed Annuity Rate policies (GARs), which gave investors a guaranteed minimum income when they retired. It suffered a near collapse in 2000 after it lost a House of Lords court case brought by GAR policyholders, leaving the mutual society with a liability of £1.5 billion and forcing its closure to new business. It is thought about 800,000 policyholders have suffered financial losses to their policy entitlements as a result. The report concludes that the company's own failings were the main cause of the financial crisis, with regulatory system failures being secondary factors. The company had deep-seated financial and managerial problems that pre-dated the emergence of the annuity guarantee problem. Critical responsibilities for valuing liabilities, assessing liability implications of new products, identifying and monitoring risk were discharged by a discrete part of the company without effective scrutiny. The Board had insufficient knowledge and skills to provide an effective challenge to the executive management, and at no stage got fully to grips with the company's financial position. Auditing and actuarial failings are also identified, including an over-reliance on the appointed actuary, who was also the chief executive over the critical period from 1991-97. There was also a general failure on the part of the regulators and the Government Actuaries Department to follow-up regulatory issues and to mount an effective challenge of the management. Lord Penrose's report identifies a number of lessons to be learned for the conduct, administration and regulation of the life insurance sector, relating to: regulatory accounting, including accounting for with-profits policies; the need for regulatory systems to keep up with market developments; auditing standards; corporate governance and the role of actuaries.