Standard Life has announced that it is thinking of distributing the £1.3billion from its with-profits accounts to the policyholders. If this should go ahead, then it could increase the policy values by 4per cent.
Although the fund has grown quicker than Standard Life expected, reattribution will not be considered, as policyholders own the fund. Although this is good new for policyholders, the not so good news for staff at Standard Life is that they intend to cut 1,000 jobs by the year 2009. This move has angered unions, especially as Standard Life reported a 55 per cent increase in profits during 2006.
Our view
Unions should keep out as they have no right to enter this debate. This money belongs to policyholders and would be theft to give it to any other party or staff who get a salary, get pensions, get holidays, get bonuses, get maternity leave, get paternity leave, get time off sick and get redundancy pay. We are not saying that employees should not be felt for who lose their jobs, we are just saying that the rightful place for the money is with policyholders.