In no particular order here are the main findings from the survey conducted between January 2009 and September 2009:

1: The term with-profits is not generally understood by either individual plan holders or, more worryingly, by employees of the with-profits companies.

2: With-profits is an umbrella term that captures many different plan types and a variety of different investments. The term with-profits is applied to a wide variety of plans and policies which in many cases bear little resemblance to each other.

3: As a result, the term “with-profits” causes a great deal of confusion to people.

4: Almost without exception the companies managing with-profits produce appalling levels of information. Information that is provided is often riddled with industry terminology and the detail is confusing and often misleading.

5: There is no industry standard applied to help consumers understand these opaque products.

6: Consumers tend to understand the terms endowment, pension and bond much better but do not understand how with-profits relates to these.