MY INITIAL feeling on hearing that Blyth & Blyth actuary David Kershaw was fined just £12,500 after being found guilty of eight counts of professional misconduct was one of utter despair.
And I am not alone. Most people I have discussed the tribunal outcome with are surprised by the leniency of the punishment.
Don't forget, around 200 scheme members have been put through hell and have certainly lost more than £12,500. Imagine working for more than 40 years to discover on the eve of retirement that you have lost not some but all of your pension.
There isn't a pension safe in the country if this is what we can expect by way of professional standards, I found myself thinking.
But not for long. Not for more than a few seconds. For into my mind flooded the faces of the dozens of reputable actuaries I deal with week in, week out. I have to tell you it is not always a pleasant experience.
They can be difficult, tough, stubborn, bloody-minded and impossible to bully. But that is precisely what the job requires. Would I trust them to look after my pension? Of course I would.
But that doesn't mean we shouldn't question the way this entire Blyth & Blyth case has been conducted, and the messages it sends to the outside world.
In many ways this judgment doesn't so much let the rest of us down as it does the many hardworking actuaries whose reputations now risk being tarred with the same brush.
If I was an actuary, I would be seriously questioning the value for money I am getting from my professional body.
Calling in the debts
WHEN I was in India recently there was a story in the Delhi press about a man betting his wife in a game of cards and losing. Two men had spent an entire day gambling together, but one of them was having a run of bad luck.
Bit by bit he wagered everything he owned, until he was left with nothing. Unable to stop, he bet his wife, and lost her too.
The story caused uproar, with everyone having an opinion. Commentators raged at the affront to the poor woman's civil rights and liberties, and the inhumanity and arrogance of the men involved.
The only ones relatively unconcerned were the two players. The husband was perfectly happy to hand her over. He had lost her fair and square and could see nothing wrong with that. But the rest of the world wasn't having it. The village elders got together and sorted out an alternative, so she was sent home to hubby again.
Barbaric, huh? So you'd think, until you reflect on how many of us gamble with our family's happiness by taking on debts we can't afford.
We can't resist the glittering new car or carpet and don't stop to think of the heartache that will follow if we can't pay the bills.
Well, our day of reckoning has arrived.
Otto's U-turn
RECOGNISE these words? "Worries about money are a major source of stress, ill health and absence from work. As a nation, we need to equip people to manage their money and therefore their lives, confidently, competently and realistically."
These noble sentiments were expressed by Aegon chief executive Otto Thoresen in his interim report to the Treasury on how to improve financial education.
Thoresen, if you remember, was asked by the Chancellor to chair this taskforce. And very pleased he was to do it, because, as he frequently boasts, financial education is something he feels passionate about.
He went on: "We need to help consumers make good decisions. They need confidence and knowledge."
All heart-stirring stuff, but it seems he was just having a laugh. Or certainly that's the way it looks in the light of the latest Money Management report into how endowments are performing.
Only one major group this year refused to participate. You guessed it: Aegon declined to give Money Management any information about its contracts, which not only include the Scottish Equitable brands but Guardian, which provided endowments to Britain's biggest
building society Nationwide, and is therefore responsible for shed loads of policies.
We don't know how many contracts they still have, nor what kinds of problems and decisions those policyholders are currently facing.
So did Otto really not mean a single word he uttered about helping consumers make good decisions by giving them the information they needed to do the job?
Or are counter-revolutionary rogue elements loose in the corridors of Edinburgh Park? It is a puzzle.
