Eq Life offers enhanced payouts to policyholders

Equitable Life will give policyholders who leave the society an enhancement to their with-profits payment equivalent to 12.5% of their policy value.

The enhanced payments will apply from 1 April, but the enhancement amount is not guaranteed, the society says.

In a statement, Equitable says: "The Society has been looking at how we can get into policyholders' hands some of the solvency capital that we hold.

"It is important with-profits policyholders leaving the society receive their fair share of capital, provided there is enough left for those who remain."

Equitable Life closed to new business in 2000. It had promised fixed investment returns to thousands of policyholders but had no provision for changes to investment conditions.

Investigations into Equitable Life's collapse found regulators had failed to spot the society's liabilities in time.

In October 2010, the government announced it would pay £1.5bn to policyholders in compensation.