Annual General Meeting 2010
Questions to the board
We asked our members who were unable to attend the AGM in person to send their questions to the board. Below are those questions and the response from the Group Board, or other senior employees where appropriate.
Question 1
PW asks "Since starting my pension policy with Scottish Life in November 2008, I have had a series of recurring problems with the administration of my policy details.
Can I have reassurance from the Board that administration of pension policies by Scottish Life will be given due attention in future? In particular when Scottish Life change one policy detail other policy details should not also get erroneously altered."
Response from the Board:
Scottish Life has worked extremely hard to deliver good service to customers and the 5* service award obtained in 2009 is testimony to its performance. However, we are not perfect and unfortunately sometimes errors do occur and we apologise for any problems experienced. We endeavour to amend all errors as soon as we’re notified.
**this customer (who received the AGM mailing addressed to Miss Paul Winter ton) has a SL policy and I’ve made sure his records have been changed at SL as well as on the overall database.
Question 2
KR asks "I note that you have set a target of £30,000 to meet in aid of Macmillan cancer charity. Is this the total target or applicable to a particular year since this figure has already been met. The documents provided do not make this clear.
I would also like to propose that instead of you donating 25p for each proxy vote, this could be increased to £1.00"
Response from the Board:
The figure of £30,000 was set as a cap for the money that can be raised from this year’s AGM. The amount that is raised by members when they vote will contribute to Royal London’s overall fundraising target for 2010-2011. This is separate from the £70,000 that the Group raised for Macmillan during 2009-2010.
We did give careful thought to the level of donation per vote and eventually settled on 25p as a reasonable figure. We based this on an assessment of anticipated voting numbers and a desire to give a significant donation to Macmillan whilst being mindful of our financial responsibilities towards members and customers.
We will review the overall mailing exercise after the AGM for next year’s AGM vote, as part of which we will specifically consider the appropriate charitable donation.
Question 3
GW asks "Thank you for answering my question last year but I have a question that I would like answered at this year’s AGM.
Both my mother and I are both long serving customers of the Royal London (over 50 years and 25 plus years respectively). The collector comes to collect our money, it used to be monthly then there was a problem of staff losses so we now pay on a six monthly basis. However, when the collector called last September he told my mother who is housebound that he did not think it would be him who would be coming in six months as Royal London was going through another restructure but we would be informed of any changes – we did not hear anything so we just waited with baited breath hoping that a collector would call in March for our money”. He did, it was the same collector and he told my mother again that he was not sure if he will be calling again due to restructuring. Please, please can someone who looks after the Royal London Collectors send out a notice/letter to customers like my mother and I advising what is happening with regard to monthly/quarterly/six monthly collections – thank you.
Sorry if the above is a bit long winded but I needed to get the point across. Thank you for taking the time to read the above."
Response from the Board:
We prefer to communicate proposed changes face to face with our policy holders who are visited by our collectors. The collectors do now however issue a leaflet advising when we are undergoing a restructure and that this may cause some disruption.
If you prefer, premiums can be paid by direct debit which offers the convenience of regular payments at a frequency to suit you (monthly, quarterly etc). If you would like further assistance regarding specific policies, please call customer services on 08450 502020.
Question 4
GM & EK ask "1. Why are there no female directors of Royal London and what is the board doing to rectify this?"
"2. When policy holders are having to pay extra premiums to ensure guaranteed pay-outs on savings products why is the society paying directors bonuses in excess of 100% of annual salary? At a time when members are being asked to share the pain of the financial crisis shouldn't directors exercise restraint and behave in a way compatible with mutual status?"
Response from the Board:
1. Appointments within Royal London, at all levels and not just our board, are made based on the applicant having the relevant skills and attributes to carry out the role.
There are a number of senior female executives across the Group. However, we feel that the current board has the right balance for the leadership, management and oversight of the business. We recognise the benefits of diversity and achieving the right balance of talent, including diversity, would always be our aim.
2. The Royal London Remuneration Committee is responsible for setting the remuneration of Executive Directors. In so doing, it asks for market information to be provided by independent remuneration advisers. Royal London's policy is for ‘on-target’ remuneration to be around the median for similar roles in comparable organisations.
For any company to be competitive it is vital that it can attract and retain proven talent with remuneration packages commensurate with those available elsewhere in the market. Royal London has been successful in recent years and the performance related elements of the executive directors remuneration packages have to reflect this.
Directors salaries were frozen during 2009.
Question 5
Mr B asks "I requested to be provided with details on my policies of their Surrender, Free Paid Policy and Estimated Maturity Values at the end of December 2009. This information was requested then to enable me to complete a review of my investments prior to the end of March 2010 when the next premiums payments were due. I expected this would be completed within 2 to 3 weeks enabling me to make my decisions regarding any changes I needed to make. Surrender and Free Paid Policy values were provided in a very lengthy way in the middle and end of February 2010 after much chasing on my part.
I have raised the issue of the inability of Royal London to provide estimated maturity values every 2 weeks since the end of January 2010 only to be told each time there are unforeseen delays and they will be provided within a couple of weeks. The problems have been slowly progressing through the various customer service layers and are now with the customer relations team (RSP/285046) but still no answers.
It is now the beginning of May 2010 and the details have still not been provided. The response given again is they have been told to say it will be available within a couple of weeks. I want to know why members have not been given a full answer as to why this is the case, and why the project to make the complex system changes required was so poorly planned and executed with the knock on damaging effect to the Group and its members."
Response from the Board:
We are sorry that you have experienced difficulties in obtaining projections on your policies. The introduction of our new investment strategy and ‘lifestyling’ has resulted in a need to make significant changes to our policy projection systems.
We have many different types of with profits policies and the changes required to ensure we could produce clear and appropriate illustrations of projected values for all these types were complex. Unfortunately it has therefore taken longer than initially estimated to complete the necessary work, but much of this work is now complete and we have sent you the projections you requested.