UK insurance companies face questions from MPs

Chief executives from some of the UK's biggest insurance companies will be grilled by MPs over long-term savings products.

Chief executives from some of the UK's biggest insurance companies will be grilled by MPs over long-term savings products.
Britain's Treasury Select Committee is questioning the CEOs of Aviva, Legal & General, Prudential, Royal & Sun Alliance and Standard Life as part of its investigation into restoring confidence in the long-term savings industry.
It is not known what MPs will ask but it is thought their questions will revolve around with-profits funds, particularly ones taken out as endowment mortgages.
There are currently around 8.5 million endowment policies in existence in Britain, of which around 6.8 million are still linked to mortgages.
But following several years of poor stock market performance many people are facing a shortfall in the maturity value of their policy.
 Figures from the Association of British Insurers show that in September 2003 around 51.7 per cent of people had been warned that the maturity value of their policy would not be large enough to pay off their mortgage, while 23.1 per cent were told it would probably not be large enough.