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Up until about ten years ago, my somewhat well-heeled village in stockbroker belt Surrey was almost the personal fief of Keith, our man from the Pru. Keith lived in the village. An ebullient, hard-working, immensely likeable man who was a part of our lives. Car insurance due for renewal? Keith was there with the necessary documents. Same with just about every type of assurance/insurance imaginable: Keith was there to sort out the paperwork. All his many customers had to do was sign cheques and forms -- Keith did all the donkey work. If one phoned his home office and got an 'I'll get right back to you' message from his answer phone, you knew that Keith would be on the phone to you that day. Any other company trying to get a look-in on Keith's business was on a hiding to nothing. Keith had the village, several neighbouring villages and the outlying farms in his pocket. We all liked him, no one wanted to upset him, and his business kept rolling in.
Back in 1975, when I first became a free lance writer, it was Keith who persuaded me to take out a private pension policy, then another, and another, and to top them up from time to time with fat single premium payments. By the mid-1990s I was paying a crazy amount into the Pru's private pension schemes -- far more than I could afford -- but I didn't mind because, whenever I wavered, Keith was on hand with his mad projections and forecasts telling me about a prosperous old age I was in for.
It was quite a blow when he retired. He was an institution and his loss was keenly felt. Surprisingly the Pru didn't replace him. Maybe there had been rumblings about unfair trading from other companies. In any event his loss was keenly felt because villagers had to start doing things for themselves such as putting cheques in envelopes and taking them down to the post office.
The rot stated with the first envelope to arrive from the Pru telling me that my car insurance needed replacement. I never used to keep Keith waiting but a brown envelope is different.
(I'm a master at keeping brown envelopes waiting except those from HM Customs and Excise. Those lads could turn up at ungodly hours armed with enough powers to nail ones head to the floor)
I did what would've been unthinkable in Keith's day: I got a quote from Churchill car insurance, was suitable gobsmacked at the saving, and changed to them. It was the same when all the other Pru premiums came up for renewal. Building; contents; travel -- all were looked at and all got the heave-ho. A couple of endowments matured. Rather than shove the proceeds back into another Pru scheme, as I probably would've done in Keith's day, I took the money and ran.
My Pru pension funds were the last to go. I started getting valuations on the funds, discovered that they were markedly under-performing, encashed the lot and transferred the whole amount (less the Pru's swingeing and outrageous 'external transfer fee') into a SIPP: the best move I've ever made. Despite my annoyance with the Pru, I have to admit that if it hadn't been for Keith the overall sum would've been nothing like what it was.
Talking to other villagers, it now seems that wasn't alone in my actions and that the Pru's local business is a shadow of what it used to be in Keith's day. I often wonder who leaned on them to scrap their Man from the Pru and whether or not his presence amounted to unfair trading.