FSA admits with-profits probe was 'unsatisfactory'

Many mutuals are facing declining with-profits business and are attempting to retain capital, rather than distribute it to investors. In 2009, the regulator investigated a group of mutuals as part of Project Crysalis, its examination of the with-profits sector. It then sent out a statement based on its limited research with mutuals which said policyholders are "entitled ultimated to all or almost all of the assets in a mutual's long-term fund". The regulator now says that it did not analyse a large enough group of mutual insurers in 2009 and the firms it did analyse were not repres...