Opinion

In the absence of the UK Parliament providing pensions news, attention turns to the European Parliament and the Committee of Inquiry into the collapse of Equitable Life.

I'm writing this a few hours after losing another family member to cancer so forgive me if this isn't the usual topical rant that you've become used to reading.

I'm currently on a countdown to my last day at IFAonline and now going through mixed emotions of sadness and excitement at the prospect of changing markets after six years as editor.

How many different ways can there be of doing the same thing, and is the requirement of a signature really something that insurers should be competing on, or should there be some standardisation?

The majority of providers seem to be waiting until the last possible moment before they implement the ABI's new critical illness definitions, but I'm still not convinced they will make product and marketing material any clearer.

Recent announcements about Standard Life's launch of an open-architecture contract and Legal and General's launch of a new international life company, based in Ireland by end of the year, herald major changes to the current offshore landscape.

Everyone in the industry has an opinion on the FSA, particularly at the moment with the regulator's push toward a more principles-based system for delivering advice.

A-day has been part of my life for the last five years. I have been involved with its development, from its original launch in the Green Paper in December 2002 (Simplifying the taxation of pensions: increasing of choice and flexibility for all).

In contacting the Liberal Democrats press office this week to get their response to the Treasury and Gordon Brown's defence of the abolition of tax relief on dividends, they replied "there's not much more we can really add to what we've already said"....

Apparently "many IFAs are introducing clients to properties abroad and receiving generous commissions!" Every day we have an approach to sell, introduce or become an agent of some foreign property company who will pay us "enhanced" this or "uplifted"...