Eagle Star saga - volunteers required

EAGLE STAR policyholders were misled when they were quoted highly attractive projected maturity values. They were misled into believing that their maturity values would be worth about twice as much as they were, in reality, going to be worth. After all these years, this drawn out issue is still pending and I am still being approached by Eagle Star policyholders asking me what is happening about this issue.

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 objective of the campaign was to gather information with a view to taking legal action against Eagle Star. At the meeting we tried, albeit without success, to persuade volunteers to help.

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

It was very difficult to find helpers among the hundreds of complainants who attended the meeting. Sadly, the problem is still there. Everybody wants action but hardly anybody wants to help. We had a plan but hardly any volunteers to help. Eagle Star policyholders were indeed misled but Eagle Star got away with it and is still getting away with it. This is wrong.

A keen volunteer who wishes to revive the issue approached me, but in view of the work involved, he asked me to write about it to find out whether we can muster any helpers. If any are willing to help to revive this issue, they are welcome to write to me.