Equitable Life Compensation

Many pensioners have been involved in the Equitable Life scandal, and they are to make a final attempt to persuade the government to pay them full compensation. A proposal is being sent to ministers next month by the Equitable Memebers Action Group (EMAG) to inform the decision on the amount of compensation being paid. The board of the company is also writing to the Treasury with its own submission and thoughts. It is believed that losses have reached around the five billion mark, although those who did invest believe they may be offered just one tenth of the amount lost. The argument surrounding the compensation has now been on going for around a decade, with 1.5 million people due to receive compensation. The coalition government will announce their proposal for the amount of compensation to be paid out alongside the public spending review which is due in October. An independent commission has been asked to establish the best way to distribute the final compensation between the investors of Equitable. The payments are likely to begin to be paid during the middle of next year. The coalition government and the previous government have been put under a large amount of pressure to follow the recommendations made in 2008 by the Parliamentary Ombudsman. This stated that the investors should be compensated in full for their losses, this due to the failure to correctly regulate the Equitable during the 1990s. The Labour government previously in power attempted to resist this suggestion, with many campaigners now fearing that the coalition government may also attempt to do this. Many pensioners invested their life savings into this scheme, with many now suffering to make ends meet, many just simply living off of the state pension provided.