What is Britannic doing to help?
Its bottom line commitment is to ensure Alba remains solvent so it can pay out death claims, other guarantees and annuities. It has pumped £70m into Alba to ensure this. This will improve certain key solvency ratios. It could put more in but that would be at the expense of existing Britannic with-profits policyholders. Britannic is also trying to manage expenses better. It has closed an office in Glasgow and finally brought the three predecessor companies on to one system. Who does this benefit? It should help those in the Alba with-profits fund. But it is no comfort to unit-linked plan holders. They have fixed costs in their contracts. Britannic could reduce them but this would, it says, be unfair to those with Britannic plans. Where does Alba stand in the with-profits league table? It says it does not get involved in these but, if it did, it would be lower than most. Over the long term, this reflects the financial weakness of the predecessor companies. Figures out late next month are
