Friends declares “a good year for with-profits”
Friends Provident has announced a rise in some bonus rates, having declared “a good year for with-profits”.
The life and pensions provider’s gross investment return on its with-profits fund stood at 9.3% in 2009 and all final bonus rates have either increased or remained unchanged from a year earlier.
In addition, market value reductions (penalties due if cash is withdrawn early) have been removed from almost all the group’s lines of business.
Friends says it is committed to treating the holders of its 1.1 million with-profits policies fairly and that this year’s bonus announcement ensures payouts from the fund reflect the value of the underlying investments.
The group’s chief actuary, Andy Carr, says: “Investment markets continued to be volatile in 2009, as they were for much of 2008, but staged a recovery in the second half of the year.”
He adds: “The experience of most policyholders will be that the cashable value of their plans will have increased by around 10% in February 2010 compared to February 2009.”
The performance is somewhat better than that of either Standard Life and Aviva.
Last week Standard Life announced a freeze on bonus rates for its one million plus unitised and conventional with-profits policyholders and earlier this month, Aviva reported that bonus rates on its ex-CGNU policies had been reduced by 0.5%.
Category: Companies News, Financials, Insurance News
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