Eagle Star saga - still pending

Unfortunately, after all these years, this drawn-out issue is still "not resolved". I still receive letters on this issue and, from time to time, I still refer to it in our column. We ran a long campaign for years in this column, which culminated in a meeting that was attended by hundreds of misled Eagle Star policyholders.

The campaign was aimed to persuade volunteers, including a number of lawyers, to help. Our first objective was to gather information with a view to taking legal action against Eagle Star.

An action committee was set up. Among other initiatives, a database containing information of over 500 misled policyholders was compiled. On my part, although I was never a member of the action committee I made a commitment to help by giving them space in this column.

I distinctly remember that it was extremely difficult to find helpers among the hundreds of complainants who attended. The tragedy is that this is still the problem. Everybody wants action but hardly anybody wants to help. There was a plan of which I cannot divulge details in this column. However, as long as we have so many complainants and hardly any volunteers to help, it will not be possible to proceed with our plan. I am in contact with Marianne Mercieca who is inundated and, to be fair, she cannot cope with the workload.

The tragedy is that Eagle Star policyholders were indeed misled but Eagle Star got away with it and is still getting away with it. This is wrong. In the meantime I am still regularly approached by misled Eagle Star policyholders who want to know what is happening and, particularly, what the action group is doing.

However I am never approached by volunteers to help. Indeed, at this point, on my part I cannot do any more than what I have done. After years of featuring articles including letters from misled Eagle Star policyholders, we only achieved the awareness (indeed realisation) of the simple fact that many Eagle Star policyholders were really misled.

Now we must act. We could resume or perhaps repeat what we did but really it would make more sense if, rather than write letters of complaint, we took action - real action.

In the prevailing scenario Marianne Mercieca has reached the point at which she cannot carry on and will soon be calling it a day. I must stress that she has done more than her fair share and she deserves a rest. Therefore, if there are any misled Eagle Star policyholders, particularly lawyers, who are interested in helping with a view to revive the lost momentum, they can write to me and perhaps through our column we may be able to revive the fighting spirit of all those Eagle Star misled policyholders.

However, if we do not have any volunteers to help, Eagle Star will continue getting away with it.