Introduction
The Office of the Policyholder Advocate is led by Clare Spottiswoode, CBE, who is the policyholder advocate. She is the first person to hold this position, as the Norwich Union reattribution is the first to be proposed since new FSA rules came into force requiring the appointment of a policyholder representative.
Organisation
The Office is organised on very flexible lines with specialist assistance being drawn in by Clare to meet the needs of various phases of the project. Clare has been doing background research on the insurance industry since being nominated as policyholder advocate in February 2006. She was formally appointed on 21 November 2006 and has subsequently stood down from two of her other commitments, most notably as Deputy Chairman of British Energy.
Clare has been able to draw on the advice and assistance of lawyers from Freshfields, the actuarial team from KPMG and the economic and commercial advisers, LECG. These teams will continue to work with Clare as necessary throughout the project and their areas of work are supplemented by other specialists from time to time.
Dr Eileen Marshall assists with general economic analysis and will have a lead role in preparing the final report on the Norwich Union plan, a summary of which will go to all eligible policyholders. Communications and consultation are managed by Jonathan Haslam, who is assisted by Sheree Dodd. They work closely with Jason Mullarkey to provide call centre and administrative facilities to meet the needs of policyholders. Jason is seconded to the office from Norwich Union. Mandy Homer has recently taken on a senior role in the office responsible to Dr Marshall for organising and collating the many report papers that form the basic material for the policyholder advocate’s final report to the High Court.
Policyholder consultation has been undertaken by two leading research companies, YouGov and Opinion Leader Research. A series of roadshows was produced by Production Bureau.
Work phases
The project started in earnest on 21 November 2006. Policyholder consultation took place in January and February 2007 with negotiations getting underway thereafter. These continued through 2008 and included time to build a computer model and analyse the outputs. This involved using data from more than a million policies to assess the possible future distributions from the inherited estate that might occur.
An announcement was made on 30 July 2008 that a deal was to be put to policyholders which would be worth, if all eligible policyholders voted for it, some £1 billion. Work then was underway to complete all the paperwork necessary so policyholders could read the details and the courts could receive the legal documentation. However, on 4 February 2009 Norwich Union /Aviva announced that the turmoil in the financial markets meant that the estate had fallen in value and the deal no longer worked for the company. It was also announced that discussions were being re-opened with the policyholder advocate to try to restructure the deal.
A new, flexible deal is now to be put to policyholders. Minimum individual offers, based on personal circumstances, will be sent in June to policyholders including information to help them make their choice. Final payments to policyholders may change if the value of the inherited estates based on the average of June, July and August increases. Payments will be made from November, subject to the approval of the High Court approval and the Aviva board.
Inquiries and administration
Our telephone helpline is based in Chennai ,formerly Madras, on the coast of South East India. We have available two main teams of 15 each and two back up teams, also of 15.
Almost all of our agents are graduates and have been trained to a very high standard. The company that operates the systems is called WNS ( formerly 24/7) and has many prestigious clients, including Norwich Union.
Our administration team, numbering 18, is based in the UK and is also highly trained and experienced. The team comprises Norwich Union employees who have been seconded to the Office of the Policyholder Advocate for the lifetime of the project.