Aegon aims to complete bulk of £60m redress by end 2011

Aegon expects to complete a customer redress exercise currently estimated at £60m by the end of next year.

Scottish Equitable - rebranded as Aegon last year - was today fined a total of £2.8m for a series of administrative failings which have, in thousands of cases, led to customer detriment.

The life and pensions company identified some 300 issues in total - five of which were deemed 'serious' by the FSA - and has agreed to pay redress or compensation to customers to the tune of about £60m.

Three of the five 'serious' issues, including incorrectly calculating guaranteed minimum pension payments and future benefits of almost 800 customers, led to customer detriment of about £19m.

Aegon says it has prioritised these cases, paying about £13.6m back to clients so far and pledging to pay full redress by the end of Q1 2011.

It says it hopes to settle the remaining cases by the end of next year.

In a statement, the company said: "[Aegon] fully accepts the FSA's findings and sincerely regrets that some customers have suffered financial loss or inconvenience as a result.

"The immediate priority of the programme has been to deal with issues that resulted in financial detriment and to return affected customers, wherever possible, to the financial position they would have been in had the issue not occurred and, if not, to pay them appropriate compensation.

"Aegon sincerely regrets that some customers have suffered financial detriment or inconvenience. Its redress programme aims to resolve all the issues as quickly as possible and is a top priority for the firm."