Treasury says £70m paid to Eq Life policyholders

More than £70m has so far been paid out to some 95,000 individual policyholders in Equitable Life, according to a progress report from the Treasury.

Its latest figures shows payments had been made to 95,601 policyholders at the end of January, totalling £70.75m.

That includes more than £9m paid out to 11,000 with-profit annuity policyholders who were unable to switch accounts before Equitable's near-collapse in 2000.

The Treasury reports regularly on a scheme to pay out £1.5bn in compensation to around 1m Equitable Life customers.

Payments were supposed to begin in June 2011, but only 3,000 victims had seen some redress by the end of 2011. The Treasury has since stepped up payments.