Britannic Group announced on Monday that it might defer 2002 annual bonuses for with-profits policies and reduce the shareholders' bonus, in order to maintain the financial strength of the group.
At the start of the press release, Britannic cited the year's equity market performance as "the worst since 1974".
In a move to reduce any further losses, Britannic has reduced the exposure to equity investments for its with-profits fund. The reduction takes the amount of the fund exposed to equities from 72 to 42 per cent.
The fund currently has a free asset ratio (the amount of excess assets over liabilities) of 6 per cent.