The Financial Services Authority is making Zurich review all Allied Dunbar individual retirement plans sold between September 2002, and April 2004, after concerns that their sales people were not following a revised sales process that was introduced in 2002, to reduce these kind of problems. Zurich is facing an investigation after selling higher charge policies when stakeholder pension schemes would have been more suitable. Their sales advisers were told to recommend stakeholder retirement plans to investors contributing less than £300 per month, or a £5000 single premium and not wanting specialist funds.
Our viewL
director, Ashley Clark said 'It is a sorry state of affairs, given the current compliance risk environment we all work in, and it is amazing that a big provider such as Zurich would have standards in place but no systems in place to monitor them.'