Wesleyan Wins 5 Star Awards

Wesleyan Assurance Society has delivered impressive results in the latest Money Management individual pensions survey*.  Wesleyan received a 5 Star Award in both the single and regular contributions category for unit linked plans. Wesleyan ranked first quartile over 5, 10, and 15 years for regular and single contributions. 

Payouts on pensions invested in the Wesleyan Pension With Profits fund outperformed returns from building societies, the average tracker fund, the average balanced managed fund and the FTSE All Share and FTSE 100 over 5, 10, 15 and 20 years.** The fund also achieved top five results for lump sum investments with an impressive 11.4% annual growth rate over five years and 10.5% over 20 years.  

The survey shows that savers holding with profits plans to maturity are still benefiting from the smoothing effects of their investment and the tax advantages of pension saving.

Craig Errington, Chief Executive of Wesleyan commented, “It’s great to see the consistent performance of our Pensions Managed Fund recognised in the 5 Star Awards. The combination of these market leading returns and our financial strength is good news for our policyholders and should give them additional peace of mind in these difficult market conditions.

“It is this financial strength that has also allowed us to maintain our mortgage endowment guarantee that ensures that all policyholders in our Open Fund will receive a maturity payout that will repay the original mortgage amount in full.”

A regular feature of the Money Management Individual Pension Survey, 5 Star Awards lists the companies currently offering the best overall value.  They are based on actual past performance of unit linked plans after all charges have been taken into account.*** Wesleyan achieved better than average past performance on both unit-linked and with profits policies.

Please note that past performance is not a guide to future performance.

*Money Management Individual Pensions Survey, March, 2009

** Based on regular contributions of £200 per month and a single contribution of £10,000

*** There are caveats accompanying the awards (stated in full in the article)

For more information and interviews please contact:

Bernadette Bogan or Navdeep Bhatti                         0121 200 9609

Wesleyan Press Office

Notes to Editors:

• The Wesleyan Group has in excess of £3.5 billion of funds under management as at 31 December 2008.
  
  
• Wesleyan received a prestigious 5 Star Award from leading industry magazine Money Management for its performance in the individual pensions survey in both the single and regular contributions category for unit linked plans (published March 2009).

• Wesleyan is one of the UK’s financially strongest mutuals, receiving a ten-out-of- ten rating for four consecutive years in the Cazalet Consulting survey of With Profits offices. 

• Ernst and Young ranked Wesleyan first out of 21 with profits life offices for financial strength in their latest capital and solvency review 2007 (Realistic Free Assets as a percentage of Realistic Liabilities).

• Wesleyan is one of only four UK life companies to receive a rating of Excellent for Financial Strength by A.M Best, a global credit rating organisation.
  
  

• In 2007 Wesleyan won the ifs Financial Innovation Awards for Most Effective Customer Segmentation Strategy.