16: The average bonus applied (measured by market weighting i.e. by averaging out the amounts based on the size of each with-profit fund) averages less than 1.5% per year for the past five years.

17: Insurance companies fees from with-profits are estimated at a staggering £4-£5 billion per year, no clear cost basis can be established for the costs of running a with-profits fund but we guess that the costs to the companies is probably only half this figure, making this a hugely profitable operation for the companies.

18: From our findings less than 3 in 100 people know how their with-profits fund is invested.

19: Likewise we believe that less than 20% of all plan holders have any idea if they have a valuable guarantee, which could affect their payout.

20: As stated above past performance is very mixed. Currently some companies defend their performance on grounds that they hold up well in comparison to other, potentially alternative, investments. We think this is barely true once properly analysed. However, more significantly we believe that, if true at all, this is a situation that may apply now, but in looking back this was not generally true in 2008, 2007, 2006 and so on. In other words with-profits may be enjoying a relatively good position at this depressed point in the investment cycle, because everything else has been hit so hard. We think this position is a one off, generally with-profits does not compare well to alternatives.

21: There is no evidence, except with the better companies and funds, of the lauded smoothing values of with-profits in practice. With-profits is sold as an investment which will smooth out the ups and downs of markets into a nice steady return for investors. The evidence is that due to the vicious application of MVRs this smoothing argument is a fallacy.