Abbey profit policyholders miss out again

Abbey National has said its profit policyholders will miss out on their annual bonus for a second consecutive year.

Abbey National has said its with profits policyholders will miss out on their annual bonus for a second consecutive year.

The UK mortgage bank said no annual bonus would be declared for with-profits policies for Abbey National Life, Scottish Mutual and Scottish Provident (including Scottish Provident Ireland), except where guaranteed rates of bonus apply.

Abbey said that the recent stock market recovery has been insufficient in scale and of too short a duration to make up both the shortfall from the previous three years and the element of smoothing that was applied over this period to allow for any bonus to be applied.

The bank, who last week posted a set of disappointing full-year results, said its priority is "to treat all policyholders fairly".

In a statement Abbey said "a positive bonus could unfairly benefit both maturing policyholders and policyholders with guarantees to the detriment of policyholders who remain invested in the funds without guarantees".