Scottish Widows search for policyholders due cash payment

An initiative by Scottish Widows, aimed at identifying policyholders who have yet to claim demutualisation payments, is searching for the remaining 33,900 policyholders who have still to come forward for their money, worth an average £2,070. Scottish Widows is eager to find these people before March 2010, when time runs out to register a claim.

The payouts originate from March 2000 when Scottish Widows Fund & Life Assurance Society (now Scottish Widows plc) demutualised. Around 1.6 million qualifying members at the time received a demutualisation payment, yet some 86,000 members failed to claim.
Scottish Widows has already traced 51,700 of these policy holders, however there are still some 33,900 unpaid sums, amounting to almost £70,080,000 - that's around £2,070 each on average. Even for qualifying members who only held non with-profits policies, the minimum amount they will receive is £600. At present, the largest unclaimed sum is £102,645.58.

Since demutualisation, unclaimed funds have been allocated to a special account. As this account will close after a ten-year period (March 2010), Scottish Widows continues its endeavours to match as many policyholders as possible with their money before this date. Any unclaimed money at March 2010 will be added to the With Profits Fund for the benefit of with-profits policyholders as a whole.

Graeme Hartop, Managing Director of Scottish Widows Bank commented, "Scottish Widows is keen to contact as many absent policyholders as possible as we're committed to reuniting them with money that is rightfully theirs. If anyone believes they may be due a demutualisation payment from March 2000, we would urge them to visit scottishwidows.co.uk/unclaimed for full details of how they should get in touch."