More information about the protections available on certain funds for policyholders transferred from BlackRock Life Limited (BLL)
If you were previously a policyholder of BLL and your policy transferred to Aegon on 1 July 2018 (following the Court approval of the transfer of policies under Part VII of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000) we want to remind you of important information that was provided to you at that time.
When BLL were your pension provider, the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) protected investors against the insolvency of BLL and would pay compensation in the event BLL could not meet its liabilities.
Following the transfer of your policy to Aegon, the FSCS protection applies should Aegon (Scottish Equitable plc) become insolvent. There were a number of fund structures provided by the BlackRock Group of Companies and at the time of the transfer, Aegon committed to providing the same level of protection from the insolvency of the fund provider as the FSCS had provided before the transfer to Aegon for BlackRock life and restructured funds.
The list of funds is linked below.
This protection only applies to the listed funds and does not apply to other BlackRock fund structures or funds not managed by BlackRock.
The Aegon BlackRock funds listed are either insurance funds (also referred to as ‘life funds’) or were restructured from a life fund to a mutual fund.
Should you switch out fully or partially from one or more of the funds listed into a non-BlackRock fund or a fund managed by BlackRock that is not a listed fund, the protections available to you will change.
The type of funds covered by the protections given by Aegon are outlined below:
Life funds
Prior to the transfer of your policy in 2018 insured life funds provided by BlackRock were protected against BLL’s insolvency by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS).
After the transfer of your policy to Aegon, Aegon protects policyholders from the failure of BLL where the fund was available prior to 1 July 2018 and is contained on this fund list.
Policyholders are protected from the failure of Aegon (Scottish Equitable plc) by the FSCS up to 100% of the claim without limit.
Restructured Funds
At the time of the transfer of your policy from BLL to Aegon, some of the BlackRock life funds were restructured as collectives as listed.
Following the transfer, Aegon will make good losses that any transferring policies invested in these restructured funds suffer, as a direct result of the insolvency of the underlying external fund manager (EFL), depositary or trustee of the underlying fund. This protection applies to transferring policies that would have been entitled to protection from the FSCS in relation to BLL’s insolvency before the transfer took place. This protection is valid as long as the transferring policy is invested in the restructured fund.